


Vaulted

by BakaMondai



Series: The Straight Shot Collection [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Major Original Character(s), exploitation of minors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25866520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakaMondai/pseuds/BakaMondai
Summary: During the night of the Triwizard Tournaments final task, Harry is washed in the after-effects of the prior incantantem spell. Understanding innately that he is about to die, his magic takes him away. Welcome to politics, intrigue, and the death of the innocence and nativity of the Potter heir.
Series: The Straight Shot Collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876981
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. Ferried Away On Bright Lights

He was numb when he woke up, the distinct echo of a thick magical power clinging to his skin. Harry felt as though he was coated in a thick layer of sweat, grit, and filth, and for a moment a blissful, indulgent moment he could not remember yesterday. He could not remember the feeling of his wand in his hand or the resonance between his own wand and that of Voldemort. He could not remember light, blinding all encompassing light enveloping him in a fold of- nothing. He could not remember the feeling of his wand, hot and heavy and the sheer magnitude of the magic - oh God, the magic was so thick it had near physical weight - pouring from his core as the spell flexed and gyrated against Voldemort's own.

“Kill the spare!”

The voice rumbling through his head shook him from sleep, acting like an electric current against his numb body. Even if he could never feel again, could never rub the soot and grime and grit from his body, Harry was not dead. His very soul ached. The very memory pained him.

Cedric was dead.

His mouth tasted like ash when he finally managed to sit up grasping wildly for his glasses. Even without them Harry had seen enough of the hospital wing to realize, immediately, that the room was not one he recognized from Madam Pomfrey's domain. Where in the world was he?

His hands searched nearby surfaces though he tried not to stray from the bed. He was certain whoever had provided his medical treatment, and he had had medical treatment. The bandage to the deep cut on his forearm was enough to assure him of that. He doubted very strongly that whoever had done all this wanted him to ruin all their hard work by prancing off without being able to muddle through anything less than a foot away from him.

Finally, in defeat Harry gave up the search and relaxed back onto the firm bed he had woken up in. He had found neither his wand nor his glasses and he could feel the familiar press of a headache at his temples the longer he tried to muddle anything out. His head felt as though someone had packed it with cotton anyway, and searching blindly was not helping him in the least.

Harry had finally managed, after an arduous seven minutes, to puzzle out a set of blue armchairs across the room from the bed he was laid up in. Their horrendous ruffles had drawn his focus and so he had proceeded in trying to figure out what they were first as he knew from experience that trying to blindly make his way out of bed was a bad idea all around. He felt increasingly stupid at how long the armchair realization had taken and swore in irritation at his awful eyesight.

The blue armchairs forced him to focus however since Harry was quite certain that he had never seen these armchairs in his entire life. In fact a number of things in the room were completely unfamiliar to him, and Harry immediately thought back to what had originally woken him.

Voldemort. Cedric. The prior incantantem. He remembered his parents' ghosts telling him to break the connection and then…

Nothing.

Harry swore in irritation. He was not keen on trying to find his way around anywhere without his glasses and wand, especially when his head was already aching from eye strain. Who knew where he had managed to find himself this time. Despite his misgivings, he made to throw off the duvet and stand. He had to figure out what was going on. He could not even be sure if anyone knew Voldemort was back yet. Harry had to warn people!

Harry heard a loud pop as he regained his feet, and even Barry Potter, despite his awful vision, was able to make out the sad form of a house elf.

“Sirs must be staying in bed,” it had a high voice, higher than Dobby's had ever been, “Master Ashwood be comings sirs. Master Ashwood be saying to stay in bed, he not expecting you to wake up so soon, sirs.”

“Please, call me Harry. Have you seen my glasses? My wand?” Harry asked, slightly confused. Who in the world was Ashwood?

“Ahs, yes sirs, Wispy has been seeing the glasses. On the end table, sirs. You must be asking Master Ashwood about the wand, sir.” The slight elf took a step forward grabbing the glasses and handing them to Harry, and ignoring his initial request.

Though the brunette was nearly certain he had searched the end table for his glasses, he slid them on sighing gratefully, when he could actually make out his surroundings again. The room was quite nice actually with the full size bed he had been sleeping on, bedecked beautifully in cream sheets and blue coverlets with an ash grey duvet draped across. The floors were a lovely rich mahogany wood and a solitary bookcase and desk sat by the firmly closed windows. Harry began to stumble towards them in an effort to see where he was and what was going on, when the elf stood firmly in front of him once again.

“Master Ashwood says you must be staying in bed, sirs. Until he is being able to see you.” Wispy said, clicking his fingers together and Harry found himself, mouth agape, tucked firmly back in bed before he could so much as protest.

“Well, where is this Ashwood then. For that matter where am I,” He finally managed despite his obvious shock. Wispy seemed to be nearly as impertinent as Dobby! He could barely move due to how tightly the elf had tucked the duvet around him, and despite the stubbornness that had nearly forced him from the bed, Harry could feel the well of exhaustion pooling behind his eyelids.

“I can not be saying sirs, but Master Ashwood is downstairs, sirs. Master Ashwood be not expecting yous to be waking for several more days. He is being meeting with several people, sirs. He be wanting to come himself, but he is being unwilling to offend Lady Burbage,” the small elf explained quickly.

“Lady Burbage?”

Wispy hesitated slightly, his large blue eyes widening. “Wispy is not being gossiping… Lady Burbage is being the grand dowager of the Burbage family. They is being trying to negotiate a marriage contract.”

“A marriage contract? For who?”

“Master Ashwood, sirs and one of the four Burbage daughters. The Sacred Seventy-Seven is being pressuring for a minor union-”

“Just more pureblooded nonsense then,” Harry interrupted casually falling back firmly against his pillow.

“Nonsense, sir? This is being very important to Master Ashwood.”

“So why doesn't he just agree?”

Wispy hesitated again before mumbling out, “Master Ashwood is not being wanting a minor union sirs, but they is being saying he is not being entitled to a major union. He would have to be giving up his name. The Seventy Seven is not wanting to be being the Seventy Eight sirs, even if Master Ashwood qualifies.”

“What does that mean?”

Wispy wrang his hands together in frustration. “I is not knowing exactly, sirs. I is thinking it is because of Septimus Ashwood.”

“I figure that isn't ‘Master Ashwood’ then?

“No, sirs!” the elf's voice squeaked much higher than before. “Never, sirs! Master Ashwood is honorable! Wispy would never say Master was like Septimus!”

“Geez, what the hell did this Septimus character do to get this reaction out of you?” Harry sputtered, surprised by the sudden ferocity of the small creature in front of him.

“Wispy cannot say sirs. But it is a foul thing, disgusting and perverse. Wispy cannot speak of it. He cannot!”

“Alright, alright tell me more about Ashwood and Burbage then,” Harry really hoped Wispy would not try and punish himself like Dobby had. It would take him a couple minutes to dig himself out of the mountain of blanket he had been swaddled in, and he figured the small elf could do a significant amount of damage to himself while he tried.

The elf's eyes softened in fondness, “Master Ashwood is being searching for a wife. The family charter be saying that they must be being at least twelve years of age, pureblooded, and capable of bearing a son. Wispy will be very much looking forward to caring for the young master when he is born.”

“That's barbaric!”

Wispy gave him an odd look, “Family magics is being difficult, sirs. Family charters is important to Family propagation. The Sacred Seventy Seven is being very angry with Master Ashwood.”

“Why is that?” Harry spluttered, his indignation obvious in his voice. How could anyone marry a twelve year old! And why would some dusty family charter require a son anyway? Harry felt like this “Master Ashwood” was precisely the kind of pureblood he should stay far away from.

“My desire”, a voice interjected, interrupting Harry's thoughts, and drawing his attention toward the new occupant in the room, “to add the Ashwood lineage to the ranks of their own, as a member of the Seventy Seven offends their very sensibilities. They would much rather I wallow in obscurity, a broken husk as they prepare to feast on the carcass of my lineage, as a demonstration of what happens to those families who dare to break the rules.” a honey dipped, husky voice interrupted from the doorstep.

Harry was quite surprised at the man, although he wasn't quite certain what he had expected in the first place. For a moment, Harry could have sworn that he saw a breath of Lucius Malfoy in the man’s cleanly aged face. Lucius however had never had the affect for such a genial expression, and neither the bearing nor the personality to attempt it. Ashwood’s eyes were a livid grey and his hair an ash blonde ring that stretched straight as a board to his collarbone. He had large crows feet surrounding his eyes that made Harry wonder if the man smiled a lot.

“Callum Ashwood,” he said bowing slightly, before shooting a weighted glance towards Wispy, to which the elf flinched slightly and popped away. “I hope he didn't bother you too much. Some house elves have trouble balancing their enthusiasm for the task at hand and the orders they have been given and occasionally forget that they are not meant to be seen.”

“He's been fine,” Harry’s temper flared for a moment in sympathy for the bedraggled elf. “I on the other hand would appreciate an explanation! Where am I? How did I get here? How long have I been unconscious?”

“Ah,” Callum hesitated, “Some of those questions are harder to answer than others. First of all, you are at the Greenwood Ashgrass Estate. It has been part of the Ashwood family inheritance since 1754. It resides in Wessex, England. Secondarily, as for how you got here I am not quite certain myself.”

Harry started to interject, but Callum ignored him and continued on.

“You appeared in a cloud of magical resonance so strong, neither I nor anyone else on the property could approach for several hours after your appearance. I, as well as Medi-Wizard Crouch, were convinced you would not survive for several days afterward. You were hemorrhaging magical energy for hours.The resonance set off the foreign magical wards several times and each time it unfortunately put the manor into lock down.“

“That is the reason I was meeting with Dowager Burbage, as that gossiping elf no doubt mentioned. The frightful woman is a handful in the best of times, but she becomes near unendurable when she feels as if she has been slighted. The fact that her daughters are the most sufferable of this year's eligible debutantes is the only reason I put up with being treated in such a manner in my own home. Now.” Ashwood paused deliberately, holding his next word as if he was used to being the center of attention and particularly enjoyed it.

“Continuing on, you have been unconscious since you arrived six days ago. Wispy has been caring for you, although medical attention was provided by my personal Medi-Wizard Chauncy Crouch. He lives on the premises, and while being a bit young to have achieved his mastery he has accomplished much in the years since I retained his services.”

“You have a live in doctor?” Harry gaped, stupefied, forgetting his train of thought abruptly. Ashwood was reminding him more and more of the affluent men and women Aunt Petunia had enjoyed watching on the television by the second. Those programs were quite possibly the only reason Harry was pleased he wasn't allowed to so much as look at the television at the Dursley's.

“Doctor? What in Merlin’s name is a doctor?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s a muggle word for Medi-Wizard.” Harry explained.

Makes sense that this pillock wouldn't know anything muggle. He's probably pureblood down to his hoity-toity hair. Live-in-medi-wizard my foot!

“Ah, well then.” Ashwood paused, deliberately as if he was waiting for something. If he was actually waiting for something, the absolute silence pervading the room made it obvious that Harry had no idea what the older man was waiting for. Each passing second seemed to sour the air even further.

“Your name?” It sounded as though the other man's teeth were grit together. The tension was obvious in his jaw and in the sudden change in posture.

Harry suddenly noticed an even more striking resemblance to Lucius Malfoy.

“Oh, sorry. My name is Harry Potter.”

Silence.

“That is quite impossible.” Ashwood’s eyes narrowed sharply, a resounding sneer marking his face with hard lines, “The Potter family died out in the male line several years ago. If you are going to lie about your lineage I would suggest at least researching the family you are attempting to claim relation to in the first place.”

"That isn’t possible,” Harry said, his obvious confusion apparent on his face, as he forced himself from underneath the multitude of blankets into a standing position. “And I'm not lying! I'm the last Potter. Why would I lie about something like that? Besides, you don’t recognize me?” Harry hated having to bring up his fame but obviously the man in front of him was a complete crazy person.

Suddenly, a thought struck him, heavy and like lead in the pit of his stomach. What if everyone thought he was dead?

He had disappeared from the tournament after all, and as Ashwood said, it had been several days since he had managed to - somehow- once again escape Voldemort's clutches. What if Voldemort had told everyone he was dead? What if Voldemort did something awful to Cedric's body? What if more people were in danger? Voldemort had the portkey Harry had been brought to the clearing with after all. What if he stormed Hogwarts-

He had to sit down, his legs felt as though he had been hit with the jelly-legs jinx. His face had gone bone white and his hands were shaking. It felt as though time had simultaneously stopped and sped up and the light headache he had as a result of several minutes without glasses rapidly amplified to a distinct roar against the back of his eyes.

Suddenly, Ashwood was at his left side, the older man’s hands on his shoulder guiding him onto the bed. “You are going into shock, Mr. Potter. Give me a moment and I will summon Mw. Crouch. Wispy!” Ashwood continued pushing Harry onto the bed and with a definite wave of his wand a large rounded pillow appeared in his off hand. He gently lifted Harry’s legs and placed the pillow underneath.

Ashwood was relieved to hear the light crack of Wispy answering his call and without turning or interrupting his mothering.

“Summon Mw. Crouch immediately. My guest has had an extremely distressing event occur and is going into shock.”

“Yes, Master Ashwood,” Wispy answered, departing in a loud crack and reappearing several seconds later, “The mediwizard is being coming through internal floo, Master. He should be being here soon.”

Harry, as the world faded into inky blackness, felt as though the man in front of him was speaking through cotton. His head felt funny and he wondered if perhaps he had been cursed and it was only now affecting him.

Something like that existed right?

* * *

Mw. Crouch adjusted his spectacles again and folded his hands together neatly behind him as he stood over the now unconscious boy. Fortunately, his medical kit carried level three calming draughts. The three vials on the end table stood empty, judging him. He pressed his lips together tightly. He was lucky the boy had not once again fallen comatose and was simply sleeping due to the exhaustion caused from a panic attack after sustained magical exhaustion.

He turned, light on his heel, to face his employer. "I suppose you know what provoked this attack, Lord Ashwood? I hate to remind you but the patient is in a delicate state. I worry that any further exasperation of his mental state will set him back exponentially."

"He claimed his name was Harry Potter."

Crouch shot the other man a shocked look, before casting his eyes once again on the young man before him.

"He must be at least thirteen. Lady Potter would have announced him years ago had she brought an heir to term. It cannot be true."

"I realize that, but the extremity of his reaction makes me believe that he, at the very least, does not believe he is lying. Nonetheless, the claim has been made. I will need to contact Lady Potter immediately."

Crouch sneered suddenly, his face tight and his voice low, "If you think she will listen to a modicum of sense I beg you to reconsider. The woman is absurd. Some of the families have been saying her blood is cursed.”

“You of all people should know that is absolute nonsense.” Ashwood hesitated, “I have nothing but suspicions…,” he trailed off suddenly as if he realised he had spoken without intending. “Of course. You were present when he appeared. The sheer presence of his magic was intoxicating. I do not know why he would seek to lie, but it was obvious he knows nothing of society.”

“A mudblood, then?” Crouch asked.

“With that magical presence? No, I do not believe it.” Ashwood paused a moment, evaluating his words. “He asked if I recognized him.”

“Hmm.”

“That is what caused the attack. He asked if I recognized him and then suddenly became extremely pale when I did not answer.”

"Is there any reason you would recognize him?"

"No," Ashwood's voice was firm, heavy. "I have had no interactions with anyone from the Ereobs' Party since they failed to back my elevation into the Wizengamot. I last spoke to Lady Potter at the annual Yule Celebration, and even then nothing politically relevant ever came of our interactions."

"Still, the fact that the boy managed to infiltrate the wards surrounding the manor is alarming. Not to mention the state of him when he arrived. The amount of acromantula venom in his system alone would have been enough to knock someone unconscious, but the boy has been exposed to the cruciatus curse for upwards of seven minutes in the last twenty-four hours. Have you discovered anything regarding how-"

Both men fell silent as a series of small knocks against the door interrupted them, and they realized suddenly how loud they were.

"Enter," Ashwood said, a small frown spread across his lips.

A small blonde head peaked around the door, and Callum's frown deepened. "Hyacinth. It is time for your afternoon lessons. Deportment if I remember correctly."

Crouch caught Ashwood's eye as he began packing his medical supplies immediately. "I will retire to my quarters for the day. I will return for periodic checks on the quarter hour for the boy. You will be kept current on his condition. I will want to speak to you tonight."

"Thank you, Chauncy. I will see you in my office. Eight pm." Ashwood dipped his head in acknowledgment as the man vacated the room, before turning his attention to the small blonde girl once more.

"Why are you here, Hyacinth-"

"Don't call me that!" Her large blue eyes stared back at him. "Call me Cinthy!"

"This is one of the reasons you require deportment lessons. It is inappropriate to address your Head of House in such a manner. Besides that, what exactly are you wearing?" The girl had draped a large piece of green fabric across herself like a cloak, and underneath seemed to be clothed only in her undergarments.

"I want Father to be Head of House again! You never play with me anymore, Callum! I hate deportment lessons! I don't wanna wear the stays! I wanna wear cloaks and boots and live at Napier House again!"

"Enough! Hyacinth, you know that Father can no longer perform the duties necessary to fulfill the role of Head of House. It is your duty to the House to attend the lesson I assign you and to wear the proper dress of a noble lady of Ashgrass when your governess instructs you to. Running about the manor like this is disgraceful. If I ever hear word of an occurrence like this again you will firmly regret such actions. "

His voice softened momentarily. "Do I ask too much, little one?"

Hyacinth relaxed from her stubborn stance, and drooped noticeably. "No, sir. I'll head back to my lessons. I just wanted to see the boy-from-the-vortex! Wispy told me when I escaped from deportment that he was awake! I want to know how he made the magic clouds!"

Despite being severely chastised Hyacinth had obviously immediately redirected her attention to the boy laying in the nearby bed.

"Not today. Perhaps if he stays long then you will be able to speak with him over dinner in a few days. Now, run along. Your governess will be wondering where you have run off to."

Ashwood smiled, a tight bittersweet line running across his face, before the hint of an expression melted away as he turned to face the bed after the light patter of Hyacinth's feet had faded.

"I know you are awake, Mr. Potter. You can stop pretending."

Harry opened his eyes, trying to muster up the feeling of being annoyed. "How'd you figure it out?" Even Ron couldn't tell when he was faking. Even though the calming draughts had him so dazed, Harry might as well have been shaken awake when Ashwood started shouting at the small girl.

"Intuition," the blond replied his voice still cold. "I have a number of tasks I must accomplish. I request formally that you do not leave this room without accompaniment. This is primarily for your own safety, but I also do not want you transversing my hallways without my consent. If necessary, I will have you relocated to a room that you will not be able to leave."

Harry nearly gapped at the man's parting words. The silent thump of the heavy wooden door made Harry want to throw something despite his exhaustion.

His thoughts drifted to the few small glances he had gotten of the small girl who had just been there. Ashwood had called her Hyacinth, but that seemed such a strange name for such a tiny girl. She couldn't have been more than six or seven.

Harry didn't know how he felt about small children if he was perfectly honest. He had never been around any besides when he himself had been a small child. He hadn't had much of a reason to like anybody then. He also wasn't quite certain how he felt about the name she had dubbed him with.

He had nearly drifted off when the nearby hearth had flared to life, green flames spurting and crackling as Mw. Crouch made his way inside and set aside his potions bag.

"Ah," the Medi-Wizard looked surprised to see him awake. "Mr?"

"Oh um- just Harry, sir. Harry Potter."

"Quite right. How are you feeling then?" Harry could tell that Mw. Crouch was a nice enough man. He was reminded more of Remus than Madam Pomphrey.

"My head's been aching since I woke the first time. And I'm pretty tired and sore to be honest."

"Well we healers say that's the least of what you should get when you're out battling Acromantula. How old even are you?"

Harry nearly blushed. Nobody here even knew who he was for some reason. "Fourteen, sir. And there is a really good reason for me being sore. Besides the Acromantula bite I mean."

Crouch chucked, his laughter tinkling together like droplets of rain on a tin roof. "I'll say. I got some odd diagnostic reports from you when the accident that brought you inside Lord Ashwood's wards. I would suggest that you reduce the amount of ambient magic around you for the foreseeable future. The effects of the cruciatus applied, particularly as many times as it must have been-"

"Twice, sir."

Mw. Crouch frowned, his expression tightly controlled "Do you perhaps recall the duration of each exposure?"

It was Harry's turn to frown as he tried to remember how long Voldemort had held him under the curse. "I'm sorry sir. It felt like forever."

"Not a problem, Mr. Pott-"

"Harry, sir, please", the boy interjected again.

"Very well then, Harry. Regarding the remainder of your diagnostic report, I detected a large seven inch gash on your right forearm. The area was cursed. I assume the wound was made by a knife enchanted with some very dark magic. The wound refuses to clot properly, and that is why your wrist is still bound." The man tilted his head toward the white cotton wrapping that covered Harry's right forearm.

"Right now, the wound is sealed with an artificial clotting charm. You must be careful with it though. If anything disrupts the charm you will begin to bleed out again. That means minimal jostling of that arm and if you can manage it absolutely no casting magic with that hand. Any directed magic could disable the clotting charm. Unfortunately, the charm will have to remain until we can dispel the curse on your arm. Another problem you arrived with was of course the Acromantula venom. You have been administered the antivenom of course, but I need you to be aware of a number of potential side effects of the venom and the antivenom."

Harry nodded, and then winced. His headache was still quite intense.

Mw. Crouch chuckled having seen the boys obvious discomfort. "The most common symptom of the venom is an intense headache." He caught Harry's eyes. " There is not much I can actually do about it. A normal headache draught is out of the question seeing as it will interact negatively with the anticonvulsant tonic I administered before you woke. That brings me to one of the second most common symptoms. Seizures. Wispy is under orders to monitor you for any, but fortunately you have not had one since the day after you arrived. After the first, I began administering the anticonvulsant."

"I actually had a seizure?" Harry was slightly stunned. "How come I don't remember?"

"Well under normal circumstances I would have said it was due to the seizure itself, but in your case I believe it is due to the fact that you were still comatose."

"Wait… I was in a coma?" Harry was suddenly more worried about his condition than before. During the tournament that stupid Acromantula hadn't seemed like such a big deal. After all, he had fought a basilisk years ago and he had walked away from that encounter without any scars - well, okay, with one circular puncture hole still leftover from Fawkes' healing tears. But against something like a spider?

"How poisonous is an Acromantula, sir?"

"Venomous, Harry, not poisonous. Acromantula are very deadly creatures. They are ranked as quintuple X beasts by the Ministry. The neurotoxin they secrete is extremely deadly to the point that I am uncertain how you managed to survive as long as you did without treatment."

"It was only an hour or so," Harry said trying to remember how long he had been in the graveyard. "Perhaps only thirty minutes." Harry noticed that Mw. Crouch's face had twitched slightly from its light look of geniality. He ignored it, focusing instead on trying to remember how fast everything had happened during Voldemort's resurrection.

The Medi-Wizard realized Harry had become lost in thought and lightly cleared his throat. "Continuing on with your recent injuries, everything else was minor. I was able to administer bruise balms and minor healing draughts to repair everything else that afflicted you. The only other thing that I picked up in my scans was a history of malnutrition. For that i have been administering a course of nutrient supplement potions, but they will work better if you are eating on your own."

Harry had felt his face go bright red the moment Mw. Crouch said the word malnutrition. Fortunately for Harry's delicate sensibilities, the man seemed content to leave the subject with only his medical advice. Harry managed to grumble his thanks despite his obvious embarrassment and managed to burrow himself even deeper underneath his mound of blankets.

Crouch couldn't help but finally allow a small grin to escape onto his face before he stood. "I will be returning on the half hour to administer your potions and verify your health. Wispy will be watching you starting at eight as your last potion for the night is at seven thirty tonight. Please try to sleep. It is the most beneficial thing you can do right now."

Harry nodded sinking back into the cushions as Mw. Crouch left the room and finally managed to drift off to sleep.

* * *

In another part of Ashgrass Manor, Callum Ashwood sat. An intense frown dominating his features as he once again read over the letter he had carefully constructed for Lady Potter. He was hesitant to directly contact the woman, no matter what he had told Chauncy, but under the circumstances he had little choice. The boy had claimed a relation to one of the few families he refused to alienate. Lady Potter had a definite right to anyone who declared themselves her kin, particularly as she was the last of her legitimate line. Callum felt his skin crawl at the thought. Most people knew the poor woman to be barren, and after her parents had been murdered and her only brother had died without heir many people feared the Potter house would be one of the first of the Seventy-Seven houses to be extinguished.

Despite this, Cedrella Potter had refused to back his own elevation into the Seventy-Seven, even posthumously and what had seemed to be the inevitable collapse of Potter House. Callum didn't exactly fault the woman for this, particularly as she had abstained from the actual vote and as they had relatively little personal interaction or common interests when it came down to it, but refusing to return someone who could potentially be her relation would be a provocation he couldn’t afford to make.

He had not lied to Chauncy when he said that he had had no interactions with Lady Potter since the annual Yule Celebration. He sighed lightly over his folded hands. It had been a long day, and he was ready to rest.

Fortunately, Callum was alone so he allowed himself to relax against his chair, the muscles in his back enjoying the comfort charms built into his furniture. A single flick of his wand had the window open and mere moments later one of the great grey owls on the property had flown into the room and landed on the owl stand to the left of his desk.

"Hello, Bryn." He made certain to give the large owls a light stroke and received a light hoot of acknowledgment in return. "I need this delivered to Lady Potter as quickly as possible. No return message is expected." He sealed the letter into Bryn's carrying case and watched as the owl took off once before checking the time.

With all that had been going on Callum had once again missed dinner in the hall. He wanted to frown but managed to suppress the urge. His father would have a number of words to say on that subject. One of Ashwood Seniors few requests for son - and, fortunately for the both of them there were in fact, delightfully few - was to meet for dinner everyday unless Callum had previously informed him. Unfortunately, Callum had managed to miss the six o’clock meeting time.

"Wispy," Ashwood finally decided. "Chauncy and I will be having a late dinner in the room adjoining my study. Has Father retired for the evening?"

The elf barely had appeared in the room before he acknowledged the command, and nodded deeply. “Yes, sirs. Master Mallum is being sleeping. Is you being needing something from Master Mallum?"

"No. That will be all. "

Callum only waited a few more moments before Chauncy arrived, the other man's tepid knock on the door startling Callum from his thoughts as he invited the younger man into his study.

"How is the boy?"

"Incredibly well for whatever he has been through. While he could not tell me how long he was held under the cruciatus, he was able to tell me he was only hit with it twice- twice! Can you think of the magical fortitude needed to maintain the cruciatus for three and a half minutes? And for the boy to maintain his sanity! Merlin, Callum. The sheer amount of damage on the boy makes my stomach hurt."

"Does that mean you are adverse to dining with me?"

"No, no, of course not. Has Wispy brought food down already? I was aware you missed dinner with your father to speak with Dowager Burbage."

"Yes." Callum gestured to the door adjoined to his office and led them both inside the room. A modest four person dining table sat in the middle of the room. Nearby was a table for chess and a separate for go. The opposite side of the room held three armchairs and a couch.

"Entertainment?" Chauncy asked. He had never been in this room before.

"For guests and business partners primarily, although it does not see very much use."

The two men sat at the ornate table and began eating delicately. Eventually, each was sufficiently full to begin to continue their previous conversation.

"When the boy first appeared, you mentioned that he was severely injured outside of exposure to the cruciatus. I know you were not able to detail everything for me then, but outside of the obvious magical exhaustion the boy should be experiencing-"

"He is not experiencing magical exhaustion. Not anymore at least."

Callum nearly set his fork down; his shock was so obvious. "That is not possible." He nearly whispered. "We both saw the hemorrhage. I have never seen so much magic flooding an area. I cannot even imagine how large someone's core must be to contain that much potential. We both saw his core was near empty when you collected him after the storm initially dispersed."

"I agree, there is nothing but strange things about Mr. Potter. I had the chance to analyze the bite wound on his leg. It was a rather deep wound from an approximately fifteen pound Acromantula."

Once again Callum nearly dropped his fork. "I thought they had been eradicated from Great Britain. Where in the world would he have encountered one?"

Chauncy laughed, "Well he was quite insistent that there was a very good reason he was fighting an acromantula. It seemed to me though that he didn't even realize that the spider was dangerous. He even asked me if they were poisonous."

"Good Merlin. He must not have received any venom in the bite then."

"No, from what I can tell he received a full dose. Further analysis of his blood caused my diagnostic tools to go haywire, but I believe someone injected the boy with a massive influx of phoenix tears and another venom nearly thirty times more potent than Acromantula neurotoxin. Somehow it seems as though the boy's body has adapted to whatever venom he was injected with and as a result venom did not work properly. From what he said it was nearly half an hour to an hour after he was bitten that he arrived here, and you know that I was unable to even look at that particular injury for nearly four more hours."

Callum was visibly disturbed at this point, and all thoughts of his meal had been nigh forgotten. "Do you think someone was running experiments on the boy? I cannot imagine someone casually encountering someone willing to cast the cruciatus, receiving injections of phoenix tears and surviving a toxin that much more powerful than acromantula venom."

"I do not know, Callum, but the way Mr. Potter disregards his own safety is frightening to me. Someone only fourteen years old should not speak of the cruciatus with nearly as much acceptance as he did."

"So he is fourteen then?"

"He told me as much when I arrived in his rooms. We spoke briefly. It is obvious that he is very tired of course but if you tried to tell me he had expended as much magical energy upon his arrival I would not believe you. There are no symptoms of magical exhaustion anymore."

"We are certain that the influx came from him then, and not an external source?"

"As positive as possible. If a device of some sort managed to send him here he had to be the one powering it. While I detected a secondary magical signature in the initial vortex, it was degraded significantly, and was very close to the boy's own. Perhaps a brother?"

"Dear Merlin, I hope not. The last thing I want to be involved with under the present circumstances is uncovering magical experimentation on minor children by one of the Sacred Seventy Seven."

"Particularly if it involves Lady Potter?"

"Indubitably. Although I seriously doubt she would be involved in anything against someone of her own bloodline. Do you suppose he is her child?"

"You know that isn't possible. She was diagnosed with the Blight in Hogwarts."

"Her brother's child, perhaps? Eadred may have died with their parents years ago but he could have produced a bastard before they were killed. If he is closer to fifteen than fourteen it could be possible…"

Chauncy grimaced, "Eadred was still a child himself when the Potter's were slaughtered. Barely eighteen, fresh out of Hogwarts. I can not imagine him doing something so dishonorable-" he cut himself off suddenly.

"Stranger things have happened," Callum said, "but at this point we are theorizing upon nothing. I would be best to resolve the issue of the boys lineage tomorrow morning when Lady Potter arrives."

"She responded to your letter then?"

"No, although I instructed Bryn not to expect one. I requested her immediate presence at seven tomorrow. Hopefully, she will be able to determine whether the boys claim is authentic."

"Let's discuss a happier topic then? Your upcoming nuptials, perhaps?"

Callum glowered deeply at the other man, "Lady Burbage rejected every proposal I made, no matter how extravagant the bride price if I would not concede to a minor union. We both know what this is about."

"Blood, power, and money. You know if I was able I would support your elevation. Unfortunately, Great Grandfather refuses to die and even when he does my branch of the family will never see a single benefit of the supposed status of great houses."

"I know that, Chauncy. You have been a dear friend to me and my family and your own circumstances are most definitely worse than my own. Have you heard anything more recently regarding your own marriage contract? I heard last that your father was considering one of the Bones daughters."

"It's unfortunate, I know. After I accept the contract, I will be forced to retire to one of the family properties. You will need to be on the lookout for a new personal Medi-Wizard, Ashwood."

"You will take a position at Saint Mungos then?"

"Gods no," Chauncy shuddered, "private practice. Saint Mungo's would restrict me too much. I can not imagine having to service anyone off the street."

"You must be looking forward to the marriage? Delphi Bones is a beautiful girl. She graduates from Hogwarts this year, right?"

"Next, actually. She has reached her majority and been introduced to the Wizengamot though. I have not yet spoken to her, but my father and grandfather are very enthusiastic about the possibility of a match."

"With any luck the two of you will produce a viable heir within a few years. Still, I can hardly believe you are going to settle into your own marriage before me. Six years my junior and you are still managing to surpass me."

The two men continued conversing, their discussions amicable well into the night. Finally, after both had suppressed several yawns, Ashwood drew his wand checking the time.

"Goodness, Chauncy. It is nearly half past eleven. I have to get to bed or I will never make my meeting with Lady Potter."

"Very will then. I will see you tomorrow, perhaps? If the boy is well enough to attend dinner I may follow suit and dine with you again."

"I am certain Hyacinth will appreciate the gesture. According to the display from this morning, and from what Wispy has told me the girl has been nothing short of obsessed with sneaking into the poor boys room since he arrived."

Chauncy chuckled as he rose elegantly from the table. "I am also aware. Did you hear what she was calling him? The boy from the vortex? How absurd. If nothing else this demonstrates to you how stubborn your sister is."

"I was quite aware how recalcitrant the child could be, thank you very much. I very much loath to try to restrict her too much, though. She deserves more than what I can give her." Callum sighed, the sound audible. "I have to retire. Goodnight, Chauncy."

Ashwood sighed as he dismissed the other man from his office. He could feel exhaustion gripping him, tempting him with the sweet promise of sleep. He gazed at his desk and the mountains of parchment that had accumulated in the last few days since Potter since his household into complete disarray.

It could wait, he supposed, since tomorrow he would get some answers about the strange boy that had randomly been deposited into his manor.


	2. Discovering A Birthright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stuff we learn:  
> In no specific order - 
> 
> Whos lady potter?  
> a bit on hyacinth  
> a bit on house elves  
> a bit on spacial magic  
> What is the Void?  
> Why aren't people recognizing Harry LMAO  
> WTF why do Callum and Cedrella know each other  
> Mallum is a person and you should be scared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was supposed to be out on the twelfth. I totally forgot to post it. Updates will be every month on the twelfth. If you care. Also these aren't betaed, although I do through them for mistakes, they only seem to pop up after I upload ( Barry Potter, anyone)
> 
> Schools back too so my free time will be more limited than normal. Also, this chapter kept getting bigger. For some reason, some people complain about long chapters ( WTF what's wrong with these people) so putting it here that most chapters will average 5 - 7.5k words. Unless they grow. Which they might dunno yet.A good bit of ch 3 is written scene wise so I hope your enjoying this.

Waking up for the second time in as many days with a headache pounding at his temples and the intense feeling of nausea in his stomach, Harry was arguably very unhappy. He could barely think straight through his headache, which seemed to be getting worse as he strained trying to sit up. Giving it up as a bad plan as his stomach rolled again, he ran his tongue over his teeth, nearly recoiling at the fuzziness he encountered. What he wouldn't give for his toothbrush!

"Wispy!" Harry finally called. Perhaps the emphatic elf could get him a headache draught. Despite the fact that Medi-wizard Crouch said he wasn't allowed one, Harry hoped that the directive had expired sometime last night. 

Harry jumped at the loud crack of the elf's appearance but recovered quickly. 

"Yes, sirs? How can Wispy be helping?"

"Can you ask the Medi-wizard for a headache draught? I'm gonna vomit if I can't have one."

"Wispy will be asking the Medi-Wizard to be coming, sir."

Fortunately for Harry, the Medi-Wizard was prompt arriving perhaps ten minutes later. "Mw. Crouch, may I have a headache draught, please? My head is absolutely killing me, sir."

The other man frowned, considering the boy's inquiry. "I suppose it has been long enough since the last anticonvulsant was administered. I can only offer you low-grade draught, unfortunately, as I am still concerned about the amount of trauma your head, in particular, has experienced recently. I want you to be able to tell if something goes wrong, and you would not be able to do that under a more powerful potion."

Hary grimaced at that but recognized the logic to the Medi-Wizard's words. Taking the offered draught, Harry prepared himself for the revolting taste and was not disappointed as he nearly choked. Spluttering and spitting, he nearly hugged Wispy as the elf appeared once again, this time offering a clear, cold glass of water. 

Draining the large glass in a single go, Harry was finally able to appreciate the sudden lack of headache present. While he could still feel it pulsing lightly against the cloud of clarity the potion had invoked, this was the clearest his head had felt since he had first woken. It felt like this was legitimately the first time he had been properly awake in days.

"Thank you, Mw. Crouch."

"Not a problem, Mr. Po - Harry. " The wizard corrected himself. 

An awkward silence quickly managed to dominate the air between the two, and Harry quickly found himself staring at the foot of the bed wondering how he even managed to get to the manor he found himself in. He supposed that he would never find out without asking. "I was wondering, sir, if you knew more about how I managed to get here?"

The older man stood from where he had bent over a large medical bag, a frown dominating his features. "Did you not ask Lord Ashwood?"

"I did, but his explanation was underwhelming at best."

"Very well. I was not present at the exact moment of your arrival, Harry, but I could feel it the exact moment you arrived. Everyone within the estate could. You need to understand though, things like this do not happen. It is not as though you broke through the wards surrounding the manor or overwhelmed them. There was nothing. And suddenly, we were in the wake of a magical storm. "

"A magical storm?"

"Frightful things. They tend to happen in highly magical locations. Places that have been the epicenter of magical disasters or sit directly on top of converging ley lines. They do not randomly appear from nowhere and lay siege to unsuspecting wizarding homes, bypassing the wards and terrifying the entire household."

"Wait - are you saying I did something like that!" Harry spluttered. "I'm basically average, sir. There is no way possible that I could cause something like that. I wouldn't even know where to start!"

"Nonetheless, at the epicenter of the storm, we found you. You were hemorrhaging magic, it was pouring out of you like nothing I have ever felt. I do not possess mage sight, but I was glad for that fact as if I had borne witness to such a display, I have no doubt that I would now be blind. The very air curdled around you. When you feel well enough I will take you to the place we found you so you can see the sheer amount of damage the storm caused to the grounds."

"What happened after that, sir?"

"Well, you remained on the grounds for close to three hours. No one could get near you. No one was able to touch you. At that time we were less certain than we are now that you had caused the storm and thought that you had gotten caught up inside it somehow. Lord Ashwood requested that I assist you, but frankly, outside of the few injuries I explained to you last night I actually did very little. We were concerned that due to the influence of the storm you may begin hemorrhaging magic further than you already were, but by the time the storm had truly subsided I was able to determine the hemorrhage was closing itself off. That is the reason we believed that you were the cause of the storm.”

“That’s absolutely absurd!”

“Believe what you wish about your arrival. Considering the lack of information we have on the situation, you may even be correct. Nonetheless, part of the reason you haven’t been turned over to the Aurors for your appearance on Ashwood property is due to the spectacle accompanying your arrival-”

“Aurors,” Harry spluttered, “But I didn’t do anything!”

Crouch leveled his gaze with the boy’s making certain to focus firmly, “You appeared uninvited with a magical storm that could have destroyed the Ashwood ancestral manor. You - single handedly - managed to force the wards designed to defend the manor against external threats to send the staff into lockdown three separate times. You claim to be a Potter, which is nearly impossible, but the possibility of which literally forces Lord Ashwood to hear you out-”

“Hang on,” Harry interrupted, “ Why does me being a Potter mean Ashwood has to hear me out?”

“Of all the questions- alright we will start from the beginning then. Do you know who the Sacred Seventy Seven are?"

“Not really sir? I know Wispy mentioned them at one point. Something about them not wanting to become the Seventy-Eight.”

“Quite. The Seventy-Seven are the leading families of the wizarding government. They took power when they helped the British agree to the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692 and instituted the Wizengamot as our current form of government. For the most part, they have been pureblooded since then, although a number of them can track their purity back to the fourteenth century. The only ones who can trace back further than that are the Gaunts’, the Selwyns’ and maybe one or two others. Technically speaking, any family head is supposed to be able to become a member of the Wizengamot, but it’s difficult to do so anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“A large majority of the family heads do not like allowing new blood into the Wizengamot. There’s not a precedent for it either since no family has died out yet so it has not become an issue.”

“Hang on,” Harry interjected suddenly confused, “What do you mean no family has died out, what about -”

“Let me finish explaining before you start off on yet another tangent. A number of years ago there was a scandal. A massive scandal regarding the heir to the Greengrass Family. His name then was Septimus Greengrass. At the time, the fallout was so significant that the poor boy was disowned, stripped of all rank and title, and basically abandoned by the Greengrass family.”

“That’s terrible.” Harry was horrified. How could someone do that to their family? Even the Dursley’s, as terrible as they were, had never outright abandoned him. 

“Yes, but the family was desperate to distance themselves socially from Septimus. Fortunately, the Greengrass family was one that had multiple male heirs so they were not left without recourse. Septimus was Lord Ashwood’s great great grandfather. He married matrilineally into the Ashgrass family, and the Greengrass family passed to his younger brother’s control. Fortunately, the Ashwood’s were pureblooded, and far enough out of the Greengrass families control that Septimus was eventually able to become a family head in his own right.”

“So what does all that have to do with me?”

“Well, when Septimus was kicked out of the Greengrass family, he lost more than his name and rank, he also lost a large amount of his potential political power within the Wizengamot. Lord Ashwood wants to reclaim his great grandfather's birthright. If you are indeed a Potter, having your support in the Wizengamot will- eventually- be useful.”

“I don’t even know anything about this Wizengamot though.”

“More presently than having your support, if you are indeed a Potter, having your support is secondary to the current Potter regent.”

“I don’t even know who that is. I- look, are you certain, absolutely certain that you don’t recognize me at all? Look have you ever seen this before?” Harry lifted up the fringe of his hair baring the scar on his forehead.

Crouch took a close look at the scar the boy had displayed. “No, I’ve never seen that in my life.”

Harry groaned loudly, “What is going on? Look, I know you probably want to be observing me or something, but I need to leave so I can figure out what happened-”

“For now, how does breakfast sound? Lord Ashwood requested that if you were feeling up to it, I bring you downstairs to eat.” The older man checked his watch, “Yes, it is only a quarter past seven. Come now. There is someone here who wished to see you as well. She is meeting with Lord Ashwood currently.”

“I need to change clothes first though,” Harry said looking down. For the first time, he realized he wasn’t wearing his clothes. Instead what he was wearing was instead fully silken white… “Why am I wearing a dress?”

Crouch, unable to help himself, allowed a small chuckle to escape. “Have you never worn a nightshirt before?”

Harry nodded saying no, indeed he had never worn a dress while running his hands down the silky material, “What’s it made out of? It’s really soft.”

“Acromantula silk. It’s imported from the continent most of the time since wizards have mostly killed off the Acromantula living in Britain.”

“Not the ones in the Forbidden Forest,” Harry muttered to himself.

“Did you say something?” The Medi-Wizard asked.

“No,” Harry said abruptly, “Nothing.”

“Here,” Crouch had walked over to the dresser Harry had spotted earlier and while he had been occupied with his dress- because no matter what the other man called it, to Harry this was absolutely a dress and found some robes inside. 

“Thanks.” Harry nodded at the man as he left the room, giving Harry a spot of privacy.

Getting dressed almost proved to be a challenge. When he had gotten up yesterday, Harry hadn’t realized how sore he was. It was soreness like an achy bone in every muscle on his body, but he pushed through it. He wanted some answers after all. What in the world happened? And more pressingly, what in the world were these robes?

Harry had only ever worn Hogwarts robes after all. Those were nice enough, but he typically treated them similarly to how one might treat a jacket or a coat. He simply threw the garment on overtop of his jeans and tattered t-shirt, barely giving his hair a once over with a comb before bounding off to breakfast. That was not possible with the ensemble the man had somehow pushed into his hands. Harry was now realizing the outfit he had been given somehow had many more pieces to it than he would have expected. Mostly buttons. There were so many buttons.

Fortunately, while Harry had apparently been stripped of his tournament apparel, he had not been divested of his y-fronts. He felt himself nearly blushing as he considered losing those while he had been unconscious and shuddered heavily. Divesting himself of the dress he had been sleeping in, the slim boy shivered in the chill of the manor room. 

There were no jeans with the robes he had been given. In fact, Harry ignored the silken shorts that had been included in the clothing pile and still found himself blushing heavily after putting on everything else he had been given because there simply were no trousers to be had. Outside of his robes, a dress shirt that hung much lower than he initially expected, thin dainty silk stockings and his y-fronts, there was nothing. It was incredibly strange and Harry didn’t know if he liked this or not.  
Finally dressed, Harry looked at himself in the mirror.

He looked… strange. 

The robes were incredibly different from what he had worn at Hogwarts. Silky where those had been woolen, finely cut where those had been premade. Even though Harry could tell these clothes were perhaps one size too large, the sheer quality of the clothing made him feel strange wearing them. 

Anything was better than his triwizard tournament apparel he supposed. He closed his eyes, wincing at the sudden reminder-

Terror. Pain. Panic. Kill the-

Harry pinches his right arm hard, dragging himself above the roaring in his ears and the inexplicable panic that had nearly overwhelmed him. No. He is fine. He is safe. He shakes his head hard. He isn't going to think about it until he knows what is going on. 

Slipping his glasses more firmly onto his nose, Harry looked at the shoes, boots with heavy lacing up and down the left and right sides, he had been given as well. These were odd, rounded at the toes with no clear signs of which belonged to which foot. He stared at them in confusion before starting to bend down 

"Shoes is being Wispys job, sir." Harry startled, jumping in surprise at the suddenness of the elf's arrival.

"Bloody hell, you startled me! And don't worry about it. I can do my own shoes."

"Wispy be insisting, you is being creasing your robes if you be bending over. Shoes is always being Wispys job. Besides yous needs to be resting that wound, sirs." The elf tilted his head towards Harry's thickly wrapped arm, causing the boy to scowl in annoyance. 

"Fine." Harry figured that anything that the elf insisted on so much must make him happy, and that Hermione couldn't nag him too badly. Especially if he neglected to mention it when he next saw her. His arm was already aching slightly despite the thick cotton padding and the clotting charm.

"Here, sir. You be sitting, while I be working." The elf snapped two fingers together. Harry was a bit startled to see the wooden legs of the armchair he had stared at last night begin moving in unison, walking the chair over for him to sit on. He made a valiant effort to ignore his unease as he sat delicately, deliberately attempting to avoid wrinkling his robes and instead decided to address the small house elf before him. "Tell me about house elves, please."

"What is you being wanting to know?"

"I'm not sure. I've only ever known two other elves, and they were both kinda crazy. Is craziness a common trait in house elves?"

"What is you meaning?"

"Well, Dobby stole all my mail for a few months. Before I met him. He also dropped a cake on my aunt's guests head. And Winky is a drunk. She gets drunk on butterbeer. What are regular elves like?"

"Wispy is not liking Dobby or Winky." The elf said as he finished knotting the strange laces on Harry's left new boot. "Elves is being servants. It is being a kind of trade. There is not much more to elves than that. Most elves is also not being crazy. "

"Now why don't I believe that?" The dark haired boy murmured to himself. "I have a friend who wants to free all house elves."

"Elves is not being needing freedom. Elves is being needing something else."

"Magic?" 

"No elves is having enough magic. You is thinking too small. Wispy is not being speaking of that though. It is being bad luck and making masters unhappy." Wispy finished his second boot laces and vanished with a frown on his face. 

"Sorry." Harry called out to the now empty room, and he was in fact sorry. He hadn't meant to pry in all honesty. He simply had never had the opportunity to question an elf that wasn't at least a bit touched in the head like Dobby or Winky were. He wondered for a moment what kind of something Wispy meant before realizing quite suddenly that he was still in fact keeping the mediwizard waiting. 

Readjusting his glasses and taking one final look at his odd appearance, Harry exhaled forcefully and took the few definitive steps toward the bedroom door. Peeking his head out of the room, Harry grinned in relief as he spotted the medi-wizard standing in the middle of the hall.

“I’m finished, sir.”

The older man gives him a once over, “Those robes look nice enough on you for as old as they are. Does anything need to be resized?”

“No, everything fits well enough. I- uh- I was wondering, is this kind of thing normal to wear?”

Crouch frowns, “What do you mean?”

“I’ve never worn anything like this before. Mostly I just wear jeans and stuff, but these clothes seem really expensive. I just - I want to make sure it's alright that I am using this stuff.”

“If there was an issue with it, I am certain it would not have been provided to you.”

“You're probably right…” Harry runs his hand through his hair absentmindedly, and winces at the sudden twinge of pain running down his arm. “Ow-”.

“Are you having any issues with your arm?” The older man extended his hands forward, asking silently to inspect the bandaged gash.

“Yeah, it's really sore. I’m trying not to move it around too much or anything, but the wrappings itch and my entire arm is really hurting. I haven’t really done anything with it either except get dressed.”

Crouch grunted, still slightly occupied inspecting Harry's arm. Finally, the Medi-Wizard released the younger man. “Just remember to be extremely careful with it. You basically have a large wound running directly across your ulnar artery. The clotting charm is the only thing preventing you from bleeding to death right now. Hopefully, we will be able to determine what the blade was cursed with so we can heal the physical wound. For now though make sure to keep it clean.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I guess we should head towards the breakfast I was promised.”

“Ah, yes. Sorry, I can become preoccupied with work whenever it comes up. Forgive me.”

“It isn't a problem. So, tell me about yourself, Mr. Mediwizard.”

“There isn’t much to tell to be honest. Do you have any specific questions?”

“Well, you seem really close to Ashwood for an employee.” Harry prodded, recalling the interactions between the two of them yesterday. 

Crouch chuckled, “For how out of it you were yesterday, you are very observant. Yes, Callum and I are closer than typical of someone in our positions. We attended Hogwarts at the same time. I was a lowly first year student when he was graduating.”

“Let me guess, you were both Slytherins?”

“Wrong. I was sorted into Ravenclaw, although even in those days Callum was very emblematic of Slytherin house. He was my mentor. I don’t know if they still run the program anymore, but that was how we came to know one another.”

“Program?”

“Ah, the IHCP. Students called it the I-sip. Stood for inter-house cooperation program. Seventh years were responsible for guiding and helping first years. He was an awful guide and I was an arrogant irritant who needed to be put into his place.”

“I can’t see that. You seem so calm.”

The older man hummed in agreement. “I changed a lot thanks to my years at Hogwarts. Callum was the one who convinced me to go into medicine even though it wasn’t necessarily the path my family would have wanted for me. My father never forgave him for that.”

“What does that mean?”

A wry smirk grew onto Crouch’s face, “You certainly aren’t afraid of being direct are you? No, no, it is fine. Have you heard of my family?”

“I think I have.” Harry thought back to his brief meetings with Bartimus Crouch Sr. and wondered whether the two were possibly related. 

“Well, while I bear the name Crouch, my family is one of those who practiced inheritance in a manner slightly different to the typical ‘heir and spare’ system most purebloods use. It is one of the reasons why we are considered a dark family even though we aren’t affiliated politically with the faction. Medicine, while considered noble, isn’t relevant to politics or business. It also doesn’t help with increasing the number of individuals bearing the Crouch name. Fortunately, the method that my family uses causes me to be quite far down the line of succession so I will be able to live my life in peace assuming I do it quietly. ”

“That seems rather terrible to be honest.”

“It probably is, but I have resigned myself to accepting the happiness I can achieve rather than mourning that which must be borne. There are worse things than disappointing others expectations.”

Harry privately disagreed, but sometimes even he knew when to keep his mouth shut,“How much further away is breakfast anyway? We have been walking for quite a while.”

“Perhaps another five minutes. The room you are using is at the end of the west wing of the estate. We are heading to the third dining room on the first floor for breakfast.”

“Wow. This place must be massive. Do you know how big it is?”

“There are approximately twelve-hundred rooms in the estate.”

Harry stopped walking for a moment and stared at the mediwizard stupefied, “That is massive. Holy crap. This place is huge.”

“Relatively speaking, it is not in fact, huge. I know a number of families that have larger estates in terms of size. The impressiveness of the estate is not in the number of rooms. It is in the tract of land that the estate resides upon.”

“What do you mean?”

“The entirety of the Ashgrass manor resides in unfolded space. It's very impressive, and allows the manor to avoid some of the downsides of excessive use of spacial folds." 

“You're talking about wizard space, right? I didn’t know there were downsides. I’ve only seen it once. I stayed in a tent that was basically a four bedroom apartment.”

"Of course there are downsides to the overuse of folded spaces. Do you know the arithmancy behind wizard space?”

“No, not really. I took divination and care of magical creatures at school.”

“Well, you won’t understand the rune work behind it then, but I can at least explain the basic concept. If you have a finite sealed area it is possible to use magic to rewrite the space inside the area. You are essentially doubling the available space. This can be done up to seven times before the weight of the folded space exceeds the threshold that the sealed area can consume.”  
“It sounds kind of like paper folding.”

“Paper folding?” Crouch looked at Harry confused.

“Yeah, you can only fold a single piece of paper in half seven times before the thickness of the paper makes it impossible to continue folding.”

“That is remarkably similar, except this is happening on a three dimensional scale. Anyway, wizard space is incredibly common. Have you seen the tiered trucks in Diagon Alley, the ones that have seven internal chambers?”

“Woah, I had no idea that those were made using wizard space.”

“Yes, indeed they are. Anyway, since the limits of the folded space are predefined and limited to the original sealed area, foreign introduced materials or people retain their original size even though the space around them has been modified.”

“So what does all that have to do with manors?”

“All manors built after the Statue was created exist in folded spaces. The Alton Family, for example, emigrated to Britain in 1779. Their manor exists entirely in folded space. They acquired a tract of land in Essex and commissioned the building to be built hidden in a massive barn complex.”

“Wait. A barn complex? You mean that all manors built using folded space are hidden as something else?”

“Yes. It is one of the downsides of building inside of folded space. While a large enclosed area allows for a larger available area inside of wizard space, it is still fundamentally an enclosed space.”

Harry continued walking slightly stupefied. He couldn’t believe that this was the first time he had heard something like this, but as he thought back on some of the things he had seen - the tent at the triwizard tournament, the trunks he had glanced over at Diagon Alley - he realized quite suddenly that the oversight had been inevitable.

He wondered, suddenly a bit worried, as he considered the clothing he was wearing and the massive building he walked through, how much he actually knew about the wizarding world he loved so much.

“Oh, I see the door to the proper dining room. Here. Let me get it.” Harry startled slightly as his escort interrupted his thoughts.

Crouch reached forward ahead of the smaller boy and opened the thick door. Harry was surprised at the simple elegance of the room, and a bit startled by a loud squealing noise he couldn’t place as he looked around. There was a massive dining table of course, but the room was nothing like the Great Hall, which was the only thing Harry could think of outside of his aunt's own squashed dining room. 

The room was tastefully covered in handsome wooden furniture. Delicate china Harry doubted had ever been used sat in cabinets and he noticed a wine cabinet at the far end of the room. Nine chairs sat on each side of the dining table, and Harry was quite shocked to see the source of the squeal. A small blonde girl, the one he recalled from yesterday's incredibly brief meeting, was sitting at the table with a couple of plates of food in front of her. Her feet couldn’t touch the floor, nor could she see very far over the top of the table without the two pillows she seemed to be sitting on.

He stepped forward slightly, nearly laughing as the girl scrambled frantically to stand up from her seat while her pillows fell to the floor. “It’s alright. You don’t have to get up.”

“No, no, no, I gotta do it right. Stay right there.” The little girl made her ways around the table as quickly as possible. When she made her way around, Harry was able to take in her tiny face with large bright blue eyes, and her incredibly blonde hair piled in a convoluted grouping of curls against her head, and her long blue dress only for a moment before the young girl was curtseying deeply. 

“Lady Hyacinth Ashwood first daughter of House Ashwood at your service.”

“Oh….” Harry realized he was probably supposed to do something at this point, but he wasn’t entirely certain what it was. He shrugged internally and decided to wing it. Giving a perfunctory bow, one that was more of a head gesture than anything else, he introduced himself. “My name is Harry. Harry Potter. Nice to meet you.”

Hyacinth came up from her curtsy and peered around Harry confused. “Did I do it wrong, Mw. Crouch? I thought he was supposed to bow and introduce himself.”

“You made only one mistake: you bowed too deeply. That deep of a curtsy would be reserved for meeting the royal family. And Mr. Potter does not know his etiquette so he will not respond as your governess has taught you. ”

“The royal family?” Harry asked, incredibly confused.

“They died out alooooooong time ago, Mr. Potter.” Hyacinth chimed in helpfully, “So you don’t need to worry about minding your manners around them. How’d you get so old without knowing your manners anyway?”

“Call me Harry, Hyacinth. I’m not old enough to be called Mr. Potter.” He ran his hand through his hair again, flinching lightly at the pain running through his left arm with the unconscious gesture. “I didn’t have a governess so I suppose that’s why.”

She patted his arm consolingly, “Well then you gotta call me Cinthy. I’ll help teach you. I didn’t know my manners either until Lord Brother brought me here from Napier House.”

“Lord Brother?”

“Lord Ashwood is the Lady’s older brother.”Crouch chimed in from behind him helpfully.

“Woah,” Harry stared down at the little girl again, and he supposed after a moment, that he could indeed see the resemblance. “You can’t be more than seven.”

“Nuh-uh,” She stuck her tongue out at Harry. “I’ll have you know that I am eight years old. Lord Brother is about twenty years older than me. Anyway, that doesn’t matter! You're the boy from the vortex, right! Right!”

“Uh, I suppose.”

“You suppose an awful lot don’t you.” Cinthy retorted, slotting her hand firmly into his and leading him around to the place she had been sitting in before. “It’s okay. I won’t dislike you for it. Come sit down beside me and I’ll make sure Soppy brings you the best breakfast. In return, you have to show me how you made the vortex clouds! I’ve never seen magic like that and neither had Lord Brother.”

Harry allowed himself to be maneuvered into a very comfortable dining chair before responding to the little girl now beside him. “While breakfast sounds fantastic, I couldn’t teach you how to make those vortexes even if I wanted to. I have no idea how I made them or even if I did. According to Mw. Crouch, they might have been caused by the magic storm.”

Cinthy frowned intensely. “Well, I suppose since you told the truth, it is okay. You can still have breakfast at least. I wasn't supposed to meet you until dinnertime, but Lord Brother says that since ‘that woman’ is coming to see you now will probably be the only time I can meet you. Soppy!”

Harry jumped when the elf appeared with an incredibly loud noise. It sounded so loud that he would have sworn a broom handle had just been snapped in half if he hadn’t seen the elf appear in front of his eyes. Harry had never seen an elf glare at someone before. Dobby had been impertinent, but even at his worst against Lord Malfoy he had never seen such a look of disgust on his face like the one that Soppy cast on Hyacinth. 

Cinthy scowled deeply at the elf. “Breakfast for the guest of House Ashwood immediately.”

“Sorry about her.” Cinthy looked at him apologetically after the elf had popped away. The food appeared in front of them immediately without a reappearance of the elf. Even Mw. Crouch had a decent plate sitting in front of him from where he had deigned to perch across from them. “Father assigned her to me. She likes to be rude, especially in front of guests.”

“Your father?” Harry asked.

“Mallum Ashwood,” Crouch interrupted, “He is a recluse. He surrendered control of the Ashwood family five years ago.”

“I’ve met Father once,” Cinthy interjected, “He doesn’t like me very much.”

“He doesn’t like you? What does that even-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Silence enveloped the table for a moment. Harry realized he had stumbled onto a minefield he didn’t even know existed. “Sorry,” He murmured, shoving his fork into his eggs.

The meal continued in relative silence.

“We are at an impasse then.” Ashwood said, his voice stoic and emotionless. Callum was at his wits end. He had been arguing with Lady Potter since her arrival this morning regarding the potential Potter boy.

“It seems so. It is a regrettable position to be in.” Her expression was as severe as always. Ashwood felt his eye twitch, and scowled internally at the flaw in his expression. 

“You are the one forcing the issue.If his claims are lies, I am within my right to exact punishment. If they are indeed factual I am in a position to seek compensation for the results of his appearance.” 

They had been saying the same thing back and forth for nearly, Ashwood glanced at his watch, forty seven minutes. He finally allowed his scowl to overtake his expression finally and shot the woman in front of him, a glare he considered to equal the bored expression that had overtaken her own.

“Enough of this, Ashwood. I am within my rights to demand the test be conducted in private without an audience.”

“And if he doesn’t turn out to be a Potter? Will you actually confess it? I fully believe that you would be willing to claim him even if he is not Eadred’s bastard.”

“How dare you! Do you seek to besmirch my honor?”

“You know very well that I do not. Cedrella, simply allow me to witness the claim. I will even allow you to use the endomagus in my possession. Since he has been in my care since his arrival and you have not been alone with him at all, the confirmation I will provide, along with that of Chauncy Crouch will support you.”

“And I suppose you want all this for free?” Her voice was sickly sweet.

“You know what I want, Cedrella.”

“We are not friends anymore, Callum. I expect you to use my title, not my name.”

“Very well. Will you support me?”

She met his eyes full on. “If he is legitimate.” she allowed.

Ashwood grinned, a wide smile stretching across his lips. It did not meet his eyes. “Don’t worry. He will be.”

Harry’s stomach hurt from laughing. Ever since he had finished breakfast, he and Cinthy had been chatting. For such a small girl, Harry was fairly shocked at how funny the little girl was even without trying. He had been worried initially that he had somehow offended the small child, but she was remarkably resilient apparently and had brushed off the cloud of sadness that had briefly overwhelmed her after his earlier insensitive question. 

Crouch had left a few minutes after he finished eating, so he was alone with her. Harry wasn’t exactly keen on spending time with an eight year old originally. The only girl he had ever spent any time around besides Hermione was well - Ginny, and all she did was squeak whenever he spoke, but Cinthy fortunately, didn’t.

Instead, the little girl was a humorous ball of energy. She had managed to drag him into another room about ten minutes away from the dining room and since then she had been pelting him with jokes and bullying him into helping her build a large castle with magical blocks. 

While the activity was more than he had been allowed to engage in previously, it wasn’t actually his primary goal in life to spend time idlying away playing with blocks. A loud crack startled Harry, suddenly. Another elf, one he once again did not recognize appeared beside him,“Sirs, you is being called by Master Ashwood.”

Harry grinned reflexively, thankful that something had managed to interrupt the game that Cinthy dragged him into.

“Oh,” He looked towards Cinthy trying to project his apology, “Sorry, it looks like I need to be going.”

The elf looked towards the small girl as well, “Yous is needing to be going to lessons, naughty Hyacinth! Swat is being reporting, yes she is!”

“You stupid elf, Lord Brother gave me permission since Harry will be leaving soon! Why do you alway try to get me in trouble, Swat?” Cinthy had stood up when Harry wasn’t looking and had her small hands braced firmly against her waist as she glared daggers into the tiny elf.

“Swat is not knowing what little miss is being talking about. Swat is following Master’s orders only.”

“Hey, hey, it should be fine. Let’s just be heading to Lord Ashwood to see what he needs.” Harry interjected, confused. Why did Cinthy have so much trouble with the house elves. Harry wasn’t even encountering this much difficulty?

The walk was quiet and brief. Harry was relieved to have a few small moments to try and absorb everything he had seen and heard during breakfast. He thought about trying to inquire as the elf escorted him to Lord Ashwood, but from the elfs thoroughly disgruntled expression, made him hesitate.

That hesitation was enough for them to approach the room that Lord Ashwood was in. Harry knocked delicately. He was so unsure as to how to approach this situation, and he knew absolutely no one here. 

If he could just have a few moments alone to settle himself and figure out what the hell was going on!

Finally, Harry decided to get it over with and cracked the door open wide enough to poke his head into the room. He was greeted with the sight of Lord Ashwood sitting regally across from a woman.

"So, uh- hi?" Harry managed. "I remember meeting you, of course," he said gesturing wildly at Lord Ashwood, " but not you, ma'am? I am sorry, I thought the elf said that Lord Ashwood was looking for me-."

"Is this him?" The young woman asked. Her tone was cold, and Harry nearly shivered as her watery blue eyes settled on him. Harry felt as though he had been pierced by her gaze as if she was looking through to his soul. He forced himself to maintain her gaze. 

The woman was slight, Harry noticed, her face pinched together by her expression. Harry doubted that anyone would ever call this woman beautiful, she was too taunt, too brittle for such a typical description, but her dress was what gave him actual pause. 

Even in the wizarding world, he had never seen anything like it. People at school wore robes or course, as did the denizens of Diagon Alley as they flitted about making their daily purchases. Even what Ashwood had worn yesterday, while ornate, was recognizable from the few times he had encountered Mr. Malfoy. 

Harry could call what this unnamed woman wore nothing less than a gown. Deep blue on the exterior, with fine lacing up and down the body of the dress. The front panel exposed a deep brown with more stitching of birds and flowers embroidered into the face of the bodice. The skirts were wide and incredibly long brushing the floor and sitting away from her waist. It reminded him of the old movies Aunt Petunia watched when it was just the two of them at home. Suddenly, Harry realized he was staring and he could feel his face begin to blush red before he could help it. 

"S-sorry. For staring. Why are you wearing that?" 

The woman's frown grew deeper. Harry was beginning to think that the people who lived in this house did nothing but frown. "Is there something wrong with my attire?"

"No, no of course not. I've just never seen a dress like that. I didn't know people still wore things like that, Ms?"

"You may address me as Lady Potter at the moment. Lord Ashwood contacted me last night saying that a young man had appeared within his home and was claiming to be a relation of mine. Is this you?"

Harry felt his heart start racing the minute she called herself Lady Potter. "I was told all the Potter's were dead." His voice was suddenly cold. His stomach ached as if he had swallowed something made entirely of lead. What in the world was going on. Harry was certain that if there were any surviving Potter's, he would know about it.

"They very nearly are. I am the last Potter."

Harry shook his head, his voice nearly a whisper. "No, I am the last Potter. After my parents were killed, I was sent to my mother's relatives. I was told I had to live with them because there was no one else."

"If you are a Potter, then it is obvious that you have been lied to. My name is Cedrella Potter, daughter of Ignatius and Arabella Potter. I had a brother as well, but they were all killed, murdered a number of years ago." 

"My parents were murdered when I was a baby. I was told there was no one else- I… you can't be my aunt."

Her steps forward were determined, graceful and very delicate. Harry was stunned that she was in fact capable of walking towards him, but the sudden feel of her hand pressed hard against his jaw startled him even more. Her grip was frail but firm as she turned his head back and forth, her gaze ice hard as she stared at his face. “You don’t look much like a Potter.”

The woman frowned, "Fine,” she murmured before continuing, “First, I need to determine if you truly are a Potter. The simplest way to do that is to identify the familial component of your magical signature. For that, I will need you to cast a spell at this." 

She turned toward Ashwood, and the blond man used his wand in a low sweeping gesture. Not a moment later, a large device wheeled itself into the room. To Harry, it almost looked like the phonograph Flitwick had had during the Yule Ball, however it was much larger than the one Flitwick had displayed. The great big horn of the device reached his past head, before funneling down into the thick oak body.

“There isn’t another method? I can’t drip some blood on a parchment and see my entire genealogy back to the founders of Hogwarts?” Harry asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Lady Potter let out a small refined tinkling laughter, “No, unfortunately that is not possible even with the aid of magic. What this device - the endomangus - does is comparative. It is not directly related to identifying bloodlines.”

“Comparative?” 

“Yes, comparative. Two samples are inserted into the endomagus and the device can determine the similarity between the two. Specific parameters can be identified. In this case, we set the endomagus to identify the similarity between the family components of the inserted samples.”

“Alright.” Harry stated as he stared at the woman in front of him stupefied. His head was roaring. He had family, besides the Dursley’s who had been alive who could have taken care of him.

People who wouldn’t have been afraid of him. People who wouldn't have hated him.

Ashwood was the first who moved, reaching his right hand into his waistcoat pocket and retrieving what Harry had asked for. Harry wasn't quite certain how he felt about the older man taking his wand while he had been unconscious. The moment the smooth wood touched his fingers, Harry eased into the comfort exuded by the thin wood. Relief bloomed in his belly and he allowed a grin to over take his features. 

"What am I casting then?"

"Something nondestructive. The endomagus can handle anything short of a reducto."

Harry nodded firmly, running over a few of the nondestructive charms he had learned in the last year before nodding. 

"Confundo."

Harry had almost expected the device - the endomagus - to do well, something after absorbing the spell. 

A wave of pain bloomed heavy in his stomach as his arm protested the use- his arm! Harry grimaced, as he looked at his left arm. It didn’t seem to matter that his right was his primary wand arm, it seemed as though the brief rush of magic through his system had weakened the clotting charm enough for blood to begin coagulating against the cotton wrapping his left arm.

Momentarily distracted by the brief flair of pain in his arm, Harry missed the brief moment where Lady Potter cast something invisible at the endomagus wordlessly.

“Is it done,” He asked when he finally felt the charm restabilize.

Both Lady Potter and Lord Ashwood were staring at him. Shock contouring both of their faces.

“You actually are a Potter,” Lord Ashwood murmured.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, before he realized exactly what the two of them were staring at. His arms and hands, his legs, in fact his entire body was glowing a heavy deep green color, “Was this not supposed to happen?”

“N-” Lord Ashwood started, but abruptly shut his mouth with an audible click of his jaw at a single glare from Lady Potter.

“Pay him no mind,” Lady Potter addressed him, her tone much warmer all of the sudden. “It is a rare thing for someone to inherit the entirety of the family component before they become a family head.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone who is under the age of majority- I mean someone who hasn’t undergone the second increase in their magical core at the age of seventeen, typically doesn’t have the magical strength necessary to assimilate family magic. You’ve managed it alone, unassisted at the age of?”

“I am fourteen. I’ll be fifteen in July.”

“Extraordinary.”

“Not really.”

Lady Potter frowned. “You shouldn’t be so humble.” She looked towards Ashwood with a thick glower on her face. “I trust that you are willing to surrender him to my custody?”

“Y-yes. Excuse me. Of course.” 

Harry thought, briefly, that maybe Lord Ashwood was perhaps flustered.

“Thank you, Lord Ashwood. We will be departing immediately then.”

“We will be departing via apparition, Harry. Have you heard of it?”

Harry thought hard. He could recall Ron briefly mentioning something at one point, Hermione talking about exams - shocker there - but no real detailed explanation. Harry was just glad it wasn’t another portkey.

“No, Lady Potter.” The woman began leading him away. “Where are we going?”

“There are apparition wards covering the entire property save for the specific points.”

Harry looked behind him confused, “Shouldn’t we wait for Lord Ashwood? He told me not to wander around unescorted.”

“Nevermind him.” The woman before him grinned reminding Harry of a shark , “He is trying to pick up the remainder of his pride right now.”

“He seemed a bit stunned?” Harry asked, confused.

Lady Potter smirked, “It’s fine. I will explain more when we arrive at the manor.”

Eventually, they reached the closest apparition room. Harry’s feet hurt from walking as far as he had and even Lady Potter looked a bit out of breath. “Why did we need to go up to the third floor for this?”

“All of the apparition points are on the third floor. It’s here, at the end of this corridor.”

“Finally.” Harry steadfastly ignored the fact that he was whining and would continue to deny it. He glanced down at his arm and frowned. “Lady Potter, is it okay to apparate with this?”

“Hmm,” She glanced at his arm, “Goodness! Are you bleeding that badly?”

“It happened when I cast the confundus. The wound reopened. Mw. Crouch took a look at it this morning and said I should avoid using it for magic since it can overwhelm the clotting charm.”

She continued looking at his bound arm, poking and prodding it lightly, “This is well cared for. Is it a cursed wound?

“Yeah, that’s what the mediwizard called it.”

“You said it started bleeding when you cast magic?”

“It was behaving erratically.”

“It should be fine. I will be controlling the apparition and it will be happening external to your body.”Lady Potter grinned at him, allowing her expression to be fully unguarded.

She looks so young when she smiles, Harry thought confused. She can’t be more than thirty. How old is she? Harry grinned back as he reached forward to take her hand.

Harry learned immediately that apparition was something he did not enjoy. From the moment he took Lady Potter’s hand to the next, Harry felt as if he was being compressed on every size. His lungs simultaneously were sucking in air and breathing it out. His stomach was full of nothing and so stuffed he could combust. Was he really being apparated?

Does Harry Potter actually exist, he wondered, the thought bouncing like chaos through his otherwise empty mind. A peculiar feeling of wrongness nearly overwhelmed him. It was like, for a single moment, Harry was dead.

Dead and alive. 

Wrong. Something is wrong .Wrong. Something is wrong .Wrong. Something is wrong with-

Landing back in reality was hard and heavy and for a moment, Harry felt his stomach in his throat and before he knew it he was on his knees vomiting profusely. The grass felt like glass between his fingertips. He could feel the cold chill of something other caressing his back, running it’s fingers through his hair. There were tears rolling down his face. It wasn’t because of the difficulty of the apparition though.

In the void between spaces Harry had seen something. And that something had been looking at him.

It took thirty minutes for Harry to stop twitching.

Lady Potter had apologized profusely. She had apologized profusely, but something in Harry’s gut told him that what had happened to him wasn’t normal. She thought he simply had an adverse reaction being suddenly transported, but Harry was certain.

The void he had seen was familiar. It was terrifying and familiar and wrong- so wrong Harry knew to keep his mouth shut about what he had seen. So now, here he was, walking the pathway up to the ancestral Potter Manor he had never heard about, escorted by an aunt he had never heard about thinking about things that should not exist.

He shoved the thought back.

“Are you alright, Harry?”

“Yes, I am alright Lady Potter.”

“That isn’t necessary, Harry. Call me Cedrella. We are family after all.”

“I can’t believe that we are actually related. I’ve only ever had my mother’s relatives before.”

“You said you lived with them?”

“Yes, they’re muggles.”

“That makes sense. I would’ve learned about you a long time ago if you had been raised within the wizarding world.”

“Did you know my parents?” Harry asked, curious.

“I knew my brother of course, Eadred was my older brother. He was just out of Hogwarts when he died.”

Harry stopped walking, his shoulders hunching visibly. “Your brother’s name was Eadred?” he whispered back. “That’s not my father’s name.”

Cedrella stopped walking as well. 

“My father was James Potter and he was married to Lily Potter when they died.” Harry continued, “I’m so confused.”

“Harry, my family was the only surviving Potter line. You have to be related to me since you possess our family magic. When were they born? Maybe my grandfather had an illegitimate son?”

“I think they were both born in the nineteen-sixties. I don’t-” He cut himself off as he watched Cedrella’s face go entirely white.

She grabbed him by his arm incredibly roughly and dragged him the last few steps into the massive building that they had been approaching. She then turned as soon as the door was closed and placed her arms firmly on his shoulders.

“Harry, I want you to listen to me very, very closely.”

He stared wide-eyed absolutely baffled at the complete change in this woman's personality.

“You are never to speak of your parents here. As far as anyone is to ever know, your father was Eadred and your mother was one of the maids on our estate. Don’t interrupt,” She looked him firmly in the eye when he opened his mouth, “Whatever you do you cannot speak of this to anyone.”

Harry nodded slowly, completely stupefied.

“I am going to take out my wand. You are not to speak at all.”  


Her wand was a flurry of movements in rapid succession Harry could not even hope to identify all the spells she cast, doubly so since a large number of them were wordless. Finally, she sighed and met Harry’s eyes, “Harry I am only going to say this once. Today’s date is April twelfth, eighteen-ninety two.”

Harry met her eyes in near disbelief. “Fuck.”


	3. The Potter Family Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, is this a week late? Ooops... Next chapter is in the works. Pinky promise, it'll be out on the 12th next month.

“Fuck” Harry repeated.”Are you serious?”

Lady Potter exhaled forcefully, “Of course I am serious. Do you have any idea how you got here?”

“No! Look, all I know is that my name is Harry Potter. I am the son of James and Lily Potter. My father was a pureblood born to old money. That is all I know about my parents, outside of the fact that I look similar to my father with my mother’s eyes. I have no idea who my grandparents even are because nobody would tell me anything!” Harry spat near hysterically. “I didn’t even do anything crazy to end up here! I was in the graveyard with Voldemort getting myself nearly murdered _again,_ and then I was suddenly apparently assaulting a manor in the nineteenth century- Not that anyone had the common decency to tell me that! Hermione is going to be so mad at me! I don’t even know what I did wrong!”

“Calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, right now! What am I going to do? Literally, no one I've ever met is even freaking alive right now!” He probably looked insane, Harry thought, but it was just too much. He couldn’t handle this on top of everything that had happened at the cemetery. How was he supposed to manage time travel on top of his already loaded plate? He was only fourteen years old!

Cedrella suddenly reached forward and grabbed Harry by his shoulders. He could hear the roaring noise of blood pumping through his ears, so loudly that he could barely understand - his aunt? cousin? - the words coming from her mouth. 

"And you!" He managed to yell out over whatever she was trying to say, "You don’t even know me! For all you know I might be a freaking lunatic going crazy in the foyer of this massive stupid house! It’s one thing after another!”

It’s the solid single slap she delivered to the left side of his face that startled him out of his rant. He stared for a moment at the woman in front of him, his mouth agape. He lifted his hand to his face clutching his sore jaw.

“Are you done?” His aunt -cousin, grandmother? - looks at him, her expression suddenly blank. “We need to talk about this, calmly. Rationally. I can’t have a reasonable discussion with a fourteen year old screaming his head off about how unfair the world is.”

“But-”

“No, you will be quiet while I speak.” Her eyes gleamed with something Harry didn’t recognize. His mouth clicked shut, “ I get it. You're confused, you’re lost, you have no idea where you are. You don’t know me and you’ve just learned you're somehow stranded in the past. You are going to have to get over it.”

Harry looked at her, his stomach doing flip flops. “I have to go home though.”

She sighed. “There is no way to send you home, Harry. At least, if there is a way, I don’t know it!”

“It’s _magic,_ there has to be a way to send me back. You don’t understand! I have to warn them that Voldemort is back.” He runs his hand through his hair ignoring the ache in his arm. “He had Cedric killed and they tortured me, but I ended up here _somehow_. I need to go back so I can-”

“Harry, stop. You can’t travel forward in time.”

“Why not!” His expression is lost at this point, and he honestly doesn’t know how to make Cedrella understand. It’s his friends. His best friends and all the students and the teachers and he isn’t even there to protect them right now. 

“It isn’t possible. There’s only one way to move forward in time and that is slowly, moment by moment. There is nothing you can do because it hasn’t happened yet!”

“So I’m supposed to sit here, useless? Safe in the past when everyone in the future is probably dying?” His voice is hoarse at this point. He has never been good at sitting on his butt when people he cares about are in danger, but the pain pinching in his head and the reality of his situation is enough to make him want to scream himself stupid. This is worse than being forced back to the Dursleys every summer, worse than people hiding that Sirius Black was his godfather, and it's made even more terrible by the fact that he knows it's the truth.

He can't do anything. Not the way he is right now, stuck in the bloody nineteenth century.

“You have to.” The way Cedrella looks at him is awful somehow. Does she pity him? He can see something in her eyes, something when she speaks that makes him want to fight, even though Harry is certain she is right. He knows she is right. It doesn’t help his temper though.

He hears the blood rushing in his ears. When the red overwhelming his vision suddenly disperses, he realizes that he’s somehow managed to shake Cedrella’s hands from his shoulders. The transition is so sudden he nearly stumbles when the sheer amount of anger that had somehow been buoying him disperses. He doesn’t even remember moving, not really and the startled expression on the Cedrella’s face is enough to make the sour feeling of shame rise up like vomit, acrid and disgusting against the back of his throat.

“Sorry,” he gasps out, but the word tastes strangely, like his tongue can't quite shape itself to form the word. His head pounds in time with his heartbeat, headache rising back like an angry tide, and he closes his eyes trying to ride out the pain that nearly overwhelms him in that moment. Has it been long enough that the draught he had earlier this morning is wearing off? It must be, because his stomach nearly rebels at the pain-

Where is he? His head hurts so bad, Harry can’t remember where he is suddenly. He reaches up, or at least tries to, because his hands suddenly aren’t _listening_ to him. The woman in front of him catches him - and was he falling, or was he flying - and he stares at her because they were talking weren’t they? They were saying words, speaking, and he had been thinking something until the pain overwhelmed him.

The world bleeds black.

* * *

Waking up in unfamiliar places is becoming a habit Harry desperately wishes to break. He opens his eyes to see another unfamiliar room. He can’t help but scowl in annoyance. Three days of fainting is enough to drive him spare, but the addition of being moved around while he's unconscious makes him incredibly uncomfortable. A loud thump jostles him from his thoughts.

He starts suddenly as he hears it, realizing quite suddenly that there is a woman in his room. She seems as shocked as he is when she looks at him, seeing his wide open eyes and smiles, her white teeth gleaming up at him as she gathers what appears to be a large parcel she dropped on the ground.

“Good morning, young master.”

Harry blinked. Once. Twice. The young woman does not disappear.

“Who are you?” His voice is hoarse, and his entire body aches like he’s been in a fight with a troll.

“Forgive me, young master. My name is Lye Belby. I have been assigned as your maid by Lady Potter.” Her brown eyes sparkled in surprise as she stared at him, transfixed. “I was instructed to tell you that Lady Potter has requested your presence upon your awakening. She seemed quite worried when you collapsed yesterday.”

“I collapsed?” Harry is getting tired of these conversations. At least he can think without having to take another headache draught. Something about this woman is strange, though. Harry can't quite put his finger on why he feels that way, but something is odd.

“Yes, sir. The medi-wizard was summoned near immediately. I was told very little regarding your condition, though, so I can’t say much. Apparently, you suffered a seizure.”

“Another one?” Harry frowned at her annoyed, whatever it is about this maid that is bothering him is hovering just on the tip of his tongue.

“Have you had them before?” The girl - Harry realizes as he takes a closer look at her face that she is close to his own age - asked curiously.

“Once, according to Lord Ashwood’s Medi-Wizard, I had one after my arrival at the Ashgrass Manor. It seemed, according to him, that they should have stopped after the neurotoxin was out of my system.”

She tutted at him lightly, placing the parcel she had collected on the nearest end table. “You must take good care of yourself, young master. I’ve never seen Lady Potter so distraught.”

“She was upset?” He can't keep his dower expression from worsening. What is it? What is so strange about this girl?

“More like frantic. I’ve worked here since Lady Potter took me in several years ago, and I’ve never seen her react like that.” She paused for a moment, “It was pretty scary though. You were writhing on the floor, shaking like mad. I thought you were dying until Bradley got there.”

“Bradley?” Is it going to drive him nuts? She's pretty, he supposes, with her long brown hair and caramel eyes, but that's not it.

“Oh, excuse me. He’s the medi-wizard who lives on the property. He's old as dirt, old Archie Bradley. Worked for the Potter family before Lady Potter was born. He's the person Lady Potter listens to most on account of how he helped raise her after… well...." she trailed off suddenly. "Nevermind that."

Harry can't help but continue staring at her, "Do all pureblood families have live in medi-wizards?"

"Just the wealthy ones. Families on the wizengamot, some of their minor branches. It's good practice if you can afford it, I suppose."

Suddenly, like the flash of a lightbulb, Harry realized what had been confusing him for the entire conversation, "You're a maid!" He spits it out like he's just solved world hunger.

She blinked at him like he's an absolute idiot. "Yes, I told you that when you woke up. Do you need me to call the Medi-Wizard, young master?"

"No, no, no," Harry splutters embarrassed, "I mean, I thought wizards used house elves."

"Ah. Well. Most who can afford it do." She hesitated for a moment. "It would be best to discuss those matters with Lady Potter first, rather than myself. I apologize, but I wouldn't want to give you an erroneous opinion, especially on something as important as your family's affairs."

"Oh," Harry nods. "Alright."

She gestures to the parcel she had been carrying. "Your clothes for the evening, sir. I will send a man in to help you dress while I alert someone to let Lady Potter know you are on your way."

"I can dress myself!" Harry nearly squeaks. 

"Your competence at that particular task is irrelevant, young master. It is our duty to serve you." She winks at him as the door swings shut behind her. 

* * *

Even the Yule ball wasn't this bad. 

Harry had been primped, polished, and basted into his new attire by a brusque man with thin fingers who kept pick, pick, picking at his bird's nest of a hairstyle for the past fifteen minutes, and had somehow come out of the end of it looking more posh than Draco Malfoy at his worst. He could still see himself underneath the new ensemble he wore, though rather than dignified, Harry felt he simply looked stuffy, and his now tamed hair seemed the oddest point of the encounter. 

Well aside from the fact that Sir Thin Hands had basically ripped his y-fronts off him at one point. That had probably been enough to scar him for life, although the thin acromantula silk replacement had been enough to shield his modesty while he stood nearly nude waiting for the man to help him redress in pointlessly fancy attire. 

It didn't matter though. Lye had come back when he had finished dressing and had grinned at his newly refined appearance. “You look very polished, young master.” She snickered at his put out expression. “I’ll be leading you to the internal floo.”

“Internal floo?”

“Yes, come along. I’ll explain on the way there.” She guided him through the large hallways away from the room he had slept in. “The internal floo is used by the family and some of the upper level employees within the manor to move quickly within the building. They are restricted for most of the staff, but since you will be arriving directly inside Lady Potter’s personal office, no one will need to guide you there.”

Harry looked around at the massive hallway, “How big even is this place? They told me that the Ashgrass Manor was like twelve hundred rooms while I was there. Is this place bigger?”

“No, young master. This estate is smaller than the Ashgrass family home. It wasn’t built by the Potter family either, although it is now the main estate. It was a piece of Lady Annaheim’s dowry nearly three centuries ago."

"Before the Statute?" Harry asks, his mind drifting away from the conversation. 

"Yes, young master. Lady Annaheim was the last of her line and she married matrelinely into the Potters, so upon her father's death, most of her family assets were absorbed into the Potter family. Though the manor was only a piece of her dowry, the collapse of her family meant that it was no longer seen in bad taste to convert the manor into the main estate of the Potter family. Actually, that there is a portrait done of Lady Annaheim." She gestured to the wall where a number of portraits rested easily. 

"She doesn't move." Harry looked at the maid in surprise. "I thought portraits were supposed to move."

The depiction of the Lady in question was obvious. She looked near regal with a green gown that matched her equally luminescent green eyes. Unlike every other painting Harry had seen decorating the halls though, Lady Annaheim sat motionless, the hint of a smirk dusting her pastel lips. 

"Unfortunately, I do not know the story behind that, young master. Lady Potter may know, if you care to ask."

Harry hummed at her in acknowledgement. 

Finally, they reached the room that Harry could floo from. Lye moved forward to push the door open, but before her fingertips could touch the ornate handle, the door gently blew open, as though a gust of wind had chosen that particular moment to intervene. She blinked in surprise, her jaw working against the inside of her mouth. "Come along then. The floo phrase will be Cedrella's Study, young master. You will only need a pinch of floo powder for that short of a distance."

"This much?" Harry grabbed into the small pouched she presented him with from the mantel a small portion of powder between his index forefinger and his thumb. 

"Should be adequate, if you use too much you'll be spat out by the system, and trust me, you don't want to be pretending to be a human cannonball in Lady Potter's office."

Harry grimaced at that, his inconvenient arrival at Borgin and Burkes two years ago was fresh on his mind. "I'll keep that in mind." He tossed the floo powder into the flaming fire pit and stepped back slightly startled as the flames burst into green. He stepped into the pit, Mrs. Weasley's words - _Speak very very clearly -_ tingling against his ears as he called out "Cedrella's Study."

Fortunately, he was not ejected from the floo the moment he arrived. Stepping out of the flames was as simple as stepping in, and to his delight, Harry found he was not covered in soot from head to foot. He spotted Lady Potter at a desk in the center of the room. 

"Hello." He looked at her apologetically remembering the way he had acted when he last saw her. His ears were probably red with embarrassment "Sorry for freaking out on you, yesterday."

She rested her head against her folded fingers looking at him lazily. "It's fine. We have a few things we need to talk about though. Come sit down." She nodded her head at the chair on the opposite side of her desk. 

"Yeah, and I have a few questions for you as well. But go ahead, I'd love to know what's actually going on." He acquiesced, sitting across from her. 

"First of all, how much do you actually know about the Potter family."

"Basically nothing," Harry frowned, his gaze resting on his legs. "My parents were murdered when I was about a year old. I was sent to live with my mother's sister and her family. They were all muggles so they couldn't have told me much even if they wanted to."

"Very well. I guess I'll explain a bit about myself then, before we get too far into things. As I told you before, my name is Cedrella. I am - or was, I suppose I should say the last surviving member of the Potter family. Up until yesterday morning, I was certain that I would be the final member of the Potter family. "

"That's obviously not possible since I exist," Harry interjected. "Can't you have children?"

"I cannot. When I was about your age, I was diagnosed with the Blight."

“What’s that?”

She looked at him surprised, “You have not heard of it?”

“No.”

“I am surprised, but perhaps that is because you were not raised within the wizarding world. It is a disease, basically. It causes difficulty conceiving children. It affects both wizards and witches, typically coming into effect in their mid to late twenties. I am an anomaly though, regarding the disease. I was diagnosed at fourteen, which is the youngest someone has ever been diagnosed. Most people are diagnosed after their first child.”

Harry was unsure how to react to that information, “I- I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. I learned to accept my lot in life incredibly early, and this was simply another portion of the trials sent by the gods. Flidais has her reasons.”

“Excuse me?” 

She wrinkled her nose. “Are you Christian?”

“I mean kind of. My aunt and uncle bring me to church every Easter and Christmas, but I've never been regularly.”

“Well, that’s better than it could be. What do you know about Brythonic Celts? Paganism?”

“Uh, do you mean like human sacrifices and dark magic?”

She scowled, “I hope you're joking.”

“Sorry, I don't know anything about that kind of thing.”

“The Potter family is traditionally pagan, so at the very least you will have to be taught the Old Ways.” She frowned, “Even if you decide to maintain your current religion, you must know the stories of the gods.”

“Wait, the Potter’s are pagan? Does that mean that we are a dark family?” Harry choked, “I don’t want anything to do with dark magic.”

The scowl that enveloped her face simply etched itself deeper, “There is a significant difference between political inclination, religious beliefs, and magical inclination. Politically, the Potter’s are a neutral family, and typically the head of the family practices paganism, and our general magical inclination has been dark for centuries. I will need to test you to determine whether or not your core is light, dark, or neutral but none of that determines the political ideology you or this family follows. You must accept that immediately, do you understand?”

Harry shrunk in his seat slightly but maintained eye contact with the irritated woman. “You're acting like there’s something important to dark magic.”

She blinked at him, her expression stunned, “Of course! Of course there is something _important_ to dark magic! All magical inclinations are important!”

Harry stood up abruptly, “I don’t want to go around torturing and murdering people like a crazy person!”

She stared at him with a confused, baffled, and somehow slightly humorous expression on her face, “Stop, stop stop. Sit down, please.” 

Harry sat. 

“I think you’ve misunderstood something, Harry. Your conflating actions with inclination, politics, religion, and declaring entire offensive branches as dead to you. Have you attended school yet?”  
  


“Of course, I attended Hogwarts. I’m in my fourth year.”

She hummed in acknowledgement. “Alright. Let’s try this then, explain to me exactly what dark magic is, then.”

Harry opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again. He wasn’t exactly certain how to explain it, but he was certain that dark magic was evil. That had been something stressed to him since the first day he had entered the wizarding world. “It is just evil.” He finally spits out.

Cedrella wrinkled her nose at him, “Not sufficient. If I am to accept you as a qualified member of the family - which I have yet to actually do, I need to know you aren’t a bigot who will immediately run the Potter family into the ground.”

“I’m not a bigot!” Harry spluttered. “Look, this is something everybody knows, right? Dark magic is evil. People who use it are crazy and deserve to be locked up in Azkaban!”

“I will have you know that I use dark magic regularly, so I would prefer you not to speak like that. Let’s try this instead, tell me a dark magic spell.”

That at least was an easy question, “The imperius.”

She frowned. “Harry, the imperius is a neutral control curse, closer to light magic than anything else. It's an uncomfortable offensive spell, but it certainly isn't dark.” She bit her lip. “I think - no, wait. Harry, do you know any light magic?”

He nodded, “Yeah, I know the patronus charm.”

She ran a hand through her hair in annoyance, “Harry, the patronus is a dark spell. How are you determining what is dark, what is light, and what is neutral?”

He looked at her in annoyance. “I mean, my teachers just told me when I learned the spells.”

She sighed annoyed, “Either something odd has happened in the future or someone is deliberately obfuscating magical ideologies in your time period. Look, the difference between light, neutral, and dark magic is sacrifice and order _,_ Harry.”

Harry looks at her, his expression skeptical at best. 

“When you cast the imperius, do you have to do anything? Sacrifice anything? Maintain anything?”

“No.” 

"That's because the imperius is at its core a control spell which puts it closer on the spectrum to light magic. The patronus is a good example of a dark spell, actually. You’re sacrificing positive emotion to summon a spectral protector. In the same vein, the cruciatus is a dark spell because you sacrifice sadistic emotions to cause pain on the intended victim. Neutral magic doesn’t require any kind of input. The magic is balanced arithmetically. Light magic doesn’t require sacrifice on the part of the maintainer normally, but it requires exponentially more magical control.” She sighs again. “If you need to think of it in a different way, dark magic is chaotic, fueled by sacrifice. It just so happens that most of the time the sacrifice is external to the user. Blood magic, for example. Necromancy. Neutral magic requires no input. And light magic is ordered. Controlled. Think mind magic, creation magic.”

“Doesn’t that make light magic better?”

“There is no better here, Harry. People have preferences, things that they are better at, but what you are asking right now is just as strange as someone objectively trying to say that only a sword can kill someone and ignoring an archer at your back. People can kill just as easily with light magic as dark or neutral-” Cedrella cuts herself off. “Look we’ve gotten off topic significantly, no matter how important it is that you understand our families position. There was something I needed to speak with you about besides this.”

Harry shoots her a perturbed look, but they had gotten off topic. “Fine. What did you want to discuss besides magic?”

“Your story.”

“Excuse me?”

“What we are going to be telling people. I know I told you while you were panicking, but I am not entirely certain that you remember that.”

“Something about Eadred being my father and my mother being a maid?”

“Ah, excellent, you do remember. My brother Eadred was eighteen when he died. He was barely a year out of Hogwarts, so while it is dishonorable for you to be born in such a manner, it does happen. Since you are the only available succession candidate, and you possess a large amount of the family magic already, no one on the Wizengamot can protest your appointment as successor.”

“So, in this story I am still a half-blood?”

“Ah, yes. Your mother will be a muggle born witch who died in childbirth in the muggle world. That will make it difficult for people within the wizarding world to gather any kind of information regarding your birth, seeing how terribly muggles document births and deaths. We'll say that you were indeed given to your mother's relatives who eventually managed to get in contact with Lord Ashwood. When he discovered your parentage, he contacted me."

"Will he actually agree to that? I mean, it would mean lying on his part since he doesn't actually know my relatives."

"It's fine. He was already willing to lie and say you were a Potter even if you weren't."

"What?"

She looked him directly in the eye. "I will be frank. I need an heir. Desperately. Before I spoke with you, I spoke with Lord Ashwood. Though we do not get along now, we did attend Hogwarts together many years ago. We agreed to falsify your results in return for my support when Ashwood reapplied for acceptance to the Wizengamot. Ashwood would back your acceptance as my successor since he was in the room when I initially met you and could prove that I didn't falsify your lineage, and when the Wizengamot was no longer looking too closely I would use blood magic to adopt you. The story would be the same, but you would biologically become my son."

"So why aren't we doing that? Not that I want to, but why not?"

"It isn't necessary. The device you used proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are indeed in possession of a large portion of the Potter family magic. It puts Ashwood in a rough spot since he is no longer necessary for supporting your succession, but since he was kind enough to support my initial plan, I will agree to support him if he manages to garner enough support to make a second attempt on a Wizengamot seat. Anyway, as I was saying, your father will be my brother. Eadred Potter. Honestly, though you look nothing like him, save for the eyes."

"I have my mother's eyes." Harry grimaced. 

"Not anymore. Eadred was a massive man. At eighteen, he stood six feet three inches tall with green eyes and brown hair. You're barely as tall as I am. Your hair is more reddish-brown and your features are too delicate to match his. Fortunately, your features are refined enough to pass as the child of a pureblood, so we will just say you take more after your mother if anyone asks."

"Technically speaking, I am the child of a pureblood."

She snorts, "You said you had some questions?"

"Oh! Yeah. I met Lye this morning."

"Yes, Lye Belby. Your maid. What about her?"

"I thought all the wealthy purebloods used house elves. If my mother was supposedly a maid as well, the Potter's must have been using maids instead for quite a while."

Cedrella gave him a wry grin as she stood up, striding over to the window in her study. "Of course, you immediately catch onto one of the more important issues I have a hand in. First, let me explain why I'm in such dire need of an heir." She pauses, taking a deep breath, before continuing. "When I was fourteen, my entire family was murdered."

Harry stared at her stunned. He knew that his supposed father, Eadred, had died but it hadn't occurred to him that the reason was something like this. 

"It was the systemic eradication of the Potter family. Not just my mother, father, and brother, but many of my aunts, uncles and cousins as well. Everyone bearing the Potter name was slaughtered. I was mostly unaware of the danger at that point, since I was spending my time at Hogwarts studying. It happened incredibly quickly as well. Within three weeks most of my family was dead. It was an incredibly difficult time in my life.”

There wasn't anything Harry could say about that. Not really. While he had lost his parents, that pain was more ephemeral than the grief that Cedrella was expressing. Less grounded. Less concrete. A small portion of him was suddenly grateful in a way, as he stared at her, that he didn't remember his own parents. 

"They were caught. The perpetrators I mean." A subtle grin crept across her face. "Normally, as a minor I wouldn't have been allowed into the trial, but I was the sole survivor of the family so they were required to allow for my attendance. Can you imagine, a fourteen year old girl watching the condemnation and execution of the monsters who slaughtered her parents?"

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "It doesn't matter now, but I had a number of people interested in gaining custody of me due to the modest fortune and large amount of land held by the Potter family. Fortunately, my father had provided an extensive list of individuals who were to take custody of me in the event of their deaths. One of my father's closest friends ended up being the one my custody went to, Mw. Arthur Bradley."

"Lye mentioned him. She said he was the Medi-Wizard who helped me during my seizure."

"Yes, indeed. Arthur is someone I am indebted to a quiet bit, and he is a major piece of the reason I am in need of an heir." Cedrella finally made her way back to her desk. "Eleven years ago, I assumed my responsibilities to the Potter family, particularly in the Wizengamot. A particular bill was introduced at that time. Thanks in part to the support provided by the MANI party, I was able to stymie it every time was proposed, save for the final time last August, but support has grown, especially within the Traditionalist faction."

"What is the bill?"

"While each edition has changed significantly, the primary goals of the passed legislation was to remove a number of protections in place against the squib and muggle community that exists on the fringes of the wizarding world. "

"That's disgusting!" Harry stared back at Cedrella, appalled. 

"It's more extensive than just that. A number of versions have encouraged the practice of muggle-baiting and for the legal execution of squibs."

"Why would anyone support something like that?"

"It's unfortunate, but a large number of Traditionalists families already dispose of squibs born into their families. They simply wanted legal protection for the act, and many were willing to support that fact alone. More concerning personally in the active encouragement the bill advocates for in relation to muggle baiting." She looks him in the eye. "This is why I need an heir. I need someone to inherit my Wizengamot seats after my death, and I need someone to advocate for the cessation of muggle-baiting. There are other protections the bill added or revoked, primarily to appeal to specific members of the Wizengamot that make repealing the bill too difficult, and garnering a massive amount of support within the Wizengamot without an heir is near impossible."

Harry cannot think of what to say for the life of him. 

"I need your help." She extends a hand across her desk. "Will you give it?"

Give Harry a giant basilisk, a sea of rampaging Acromantula, a ravenous troll. Hell, throw him into a lake of merpeople because he can do that. Fighting for his life with only his wits and the coursing of adrenaline in his veins. This? Politics? 

Harry has never been asked to do something so beyond him - so absolutely foreign that honestly? Harry has no idea where he would even be able to start. 

But it's the look in Cedrella's eyes. Something harsh. Something in the way that she asks-

That is it he realizes. Someone is asking him, Harry, for help. Cedrella doesn't even know who Voldemort is, she likely doesn't even care about his parents or how his eyes look like his mother's and his hair looks like his father. She is looking at _him_ for help. 

He reaches forward to grasp her hand. "Where do we start?"

She grins back, her face blooming into a smile. "Get ready for some tests."

* * *

The tests do not go well. 

They have been sitting in the Potter Family library, in his ancestral home, one of which Harry had never known existed and would likely have never visited if not for the gigantic mess his life has become. His head has been bent firmly over parchment after parchment, his quill and ink close at hand, for what nears three hours. His magic stretches languidly, enjoying the way the family wards tousle against it. The feeling unnerves Harry, makes him feel as if he is welcome and home and _exposed_ in a way he isn't certain he likes or is even capable of preventing. 

That of course doesn't change the fact that most of the tests definitely did not go well. He has been _taking tests_ for nearly a week at this point, but badly scored tests seem to drive his mood even further into the dirt. 

Harry isn't necessarily shocked by this either. He has always been better at practical magic than theory, has always been better at physically doing something- learning by bloody stubbornness and pigheaded idiocy - rather than beating his head against a book for hours in silent libraries where nosy librarians shush him every fifteen minutes. 

It isn't that he is stupid either. Harry knows he isnt stupid. He just isn't motivated. Not like Hermione is. Not even like Ron can be when something interesting in class catches his eye. While Harry knows the other boy well enough to be fairly certain he would never begin burying himself in texts the way their other friend did, Ron was smart in a way that startled Harry. In a way Harry knew he just wasn't. 

Justification for his behavior feels ephemeral now when embarrassment coats him like a cloying robe. 

At Hogwarts, it had just been school. Class after class had been fine, but they had been classes. Homework about transfiguration and charms had just been homework. Of course he had been learning magic, but there was very little he had cared about outside of the meager curriculum offered to the student body. 

Besides that, Harry had been a very unmotivated student. Hermione often had to take control over his study schedule, and if it wasn't for her ironclad will more than a few homework assignments would likely have never been attempted. Ron had the same outlook and the two of them had enjoyed bumming around, goofing off and generally being children in the throws of immaturity. 

Harry remembered those days. He missed those days already with a yearning in his stomach and a pang in his heart, but he couldn't do anything about it so he stared resolute into the frowning gaze of his aunt. 

"Pathetic." Cedrella is holding a stack of heavily soiled parchment pieces, coated heavily in his own scrawl. In all likelihood these are his terrible test results from the avalanche of parchment his aunt had forced upon him today. "You are telling me you qualified for your fourth year at Hogwarts and you know how many spells?"

"Maybe twenty? Probably closer to thirty." Harry guesses. It does not help his aunt's mood. He supposes he should know what spells he actually knows better than that but honestly he also finds himself politely perturbed at the small number of incantations he actually knew. 

'In first year there was wingardium leviosa and finite incantatem in charms, and in transfiguration we learned formutatio which we basically used all year. Then there was flipendo in all three forms from defense, although I think I gave up on the second one…' he wonders silently. 

"You failed the history, potions, divination, and care of magical creatures mock exams I gave you. Did you lie about your electives?

"No. I take divination and care." Harry was barely paying attention to his aunt at this point, more focused on trying to recall the few incantations that he had learned in recent years. 

"Any explanation then?" His aunt focused her gaze straight on him, and Harry realized suddenly that his lapse in attentiveness had been noticed. 

The boy snorts loudly sitting up straight and refocusing on his aunt for the time being. "I mean, I don't know anything about divination for one. My teacher at Hogwarts spends most of her class period pretending to prophesy my death. Haven't learned anything useful."

"Do you care about learning divination?"

"Not particularly. I only signed up for the class since my best friend was taking it and it was considered an easy 'O'."

"Very well. I will set that one aside then. Care of magical creatures?"

"We haven't dealt with anything that was on the exam you gave me?"

It comes out sounding more like a question than Harry is willing to admit if pressed, but it is the truth. He knew the easy questions that had been on the exam of course - he had written three entire paragraphs on the best ways to restrain doxies - but on some of the more esoteric questions had stumped him entirely. After all, he had no idea what a billywig was or why the creatures would require certification from the ministry in order to license breeding. Hagrid had never gone into the legalities of keeping creatures and nearly half the test had covered that as well as animals Harry had frankly never heard about. 

"What have you dealt with?"

"My third year we had a hippogriff, it attacked one of my classmates so we spent the rest of the year taking care of pygmy puffs and flobberworms. Hagrid is an awesome bloke, honest, but I know after this last year even Ron and I were considering dropping the class."

"Why?"

"Three words. Blast-ended-skrewts. Literally no one was leaving class without having some sort of injury. They were nasty."

"Do you want to continue with it then?"

Harry sighed. "Without Hagrid teaching the class probably not. I just don't really care about the animals that much, even if they are magical."

"Very well. History then?"

"Just out of curiosity, who is the current professor at Hogwarts?"

"Cutherburt Binns."

"That's what I thought. His ghost is still teaching in my time. The only issue is that he can't get past the first module in the introductory classes. He just teaches goblin wars. Every class. Every year. They don't even offer anything past history O.W.Ls at Hogwarts anymore because no one ever qualifies for them."

The elder Potter groaned in frustration, a noise Harry had thought impossible for the woman to make escaping her lips and managed to bring a smirk to his own. "I told you this wasn't going to end well. I won't do well on written exams. I've only ever taken comprehensive exams once after all."

"What does that even mean?" Cedrella's voice was shrill.

"Exactly that," Harry grinned, his eyes gleaming with humor. "Final exams were canceled my first and second years at Hogwarts. I took them last year, but I didn't actually do very well on them. Well, outside of defense and I only did really well on the practical portion."

"What do you mean exams were canceled? Did they just pass everyone?"

"I think they based it on your grade prior to the exams. But I mean, everyone passed anyway since I don't think we lost anyone in my year." He grins at his aunt. After three weeks of nothing but tests, somehow he had finally managed to needle his way past the icy exterior the woman used to to protect herself. Some of her reactions to the nonsense that had gone on at Hogwarts were downright hilarious, and Harry was comfortable enough around the woman at this point to say that he felt the smallest nugget of pleasure in his gut every time she got mad on his behalf. 

She collapsed into her chair across from the table he had spread all of his materials on, sighing loudly. She bit her lip as she met his eyes "From what I've seen, Harry, there is no way to admit you to school at Hogwarts as a fifth year." 


End file.
